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Plants for East-Facing Windows

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Window Plants

Our little studio faces east, so all we get is the morning sun. It’s a challenge to find plants that will do well with just that amount of light. You might have a challenging spot too, so here’s some things we have found that survive and thrive.

Rhipsalis / Mistletoe Cactus

These come in so many varieties. We have found them to be very hardy and tolerant to be inside with filtered light. You can see nice pictures of many other varieties here at The Succulent Garden.

Hoya

These also come in lots of different kinds, you will find they often have ‘collector’s tags’ if you are buying from the local nursery. They can handle fairly low light, but to flower they will need more light.

Jade Plant / Money Plant / Crassula

Although some crassula need more sunlight, there are a number of them that we have grown indoors with no problems, including crassula ovata (plantsonline has a good description of it), crassula gollum, and crassula hobbit (not to be confused with crassula gandalf. Just kidding. No, actually not kidding, it does exist…).

Sedum burrito

I’m not sure of other sedums, but this one is so wonderful, we’ve never had any trouble with it. It gets enough light from the window. A customer told me they even have it growing in their bathroom with no issues, and it’s even getting very long and is happy.

Chain of Hearts

Again, does well in the window. The main thing is like with the Zanzibar Gem, to make sure you don’t over-water it or it will rot the rhizomes (small potato-like things under the ground which the roots come from).

There’s other things too of course, but these our our top picks for the moment.

 

 

Zanzibar Gem Plant

What we love about: Zanzibar Gem

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What is ‘Zanzibar Gem’?

The ‘zanzibar gem’, or Zamioculca (not to be confused with zebra binoculars {yes they do exist…}, or the Hoodoo Guru’s ‘I’ve never been to Zanzibar’) is one of our favourite plants. It should be high on any list of faves in my {humble} opinion. It’s also in Costa’s top three in this Gardening Australia article.

Why is it so great?

Well, so many reasons! Firstly, it’s leaves are lovely and glossy. Secondly, studies have shown it to be beneficial in improving air-quality. And thirdly, because it’s just so easy to look after, as long as you don’t water it very much. Yes, that’s right, don’t water it… not much at all. I think that’s pretty awesome for a plant that looks and keeps so well in the unforgiving indoor environment. You can go on holiday and this little (though they can get bigger) plant will be happy no worries.

How do I care for it?

The care-tags on the plant will tell you more, but from my experience it does best with the tiniest watering every month or so, depending how drying the weather/air-conditioning has been. The main thing is to make sure it is never saturated or sitting in water. I usually water at the edge of the pot so the main rhizome and stalks of the plant are never really, really wet.

Tesselaar Flowers also has some notes about it here.

Where can I buy it?

From us, silly. Also your local nursery should have them if you can’t make it in : )

Would my Aunt Nina like it?

Yes, yes she would. She can sit it on the side table in the corner near the bench seat overlooking the side yard. You know the one I mean.