5 Easy Plants To Spruce Up Your Place

If you’ve moved out for the first time, and you feel like your room’s looking a little bleak with just a bed, desk and chest of drawers, we've got the solution for you!

House plants are a god-send for adding your own personal flair to your space, getting a sense of accomplishment as you watch your plant children grow, and showing that you’re got your act together enough to take care of something! If you wanna dip your toes into the plant world with something low-maintenance and high-reward, here are my five top picks to get started:

Pothos

These guys are super underrated, but a great choice for any sharehouse. What they lack in flowers, they more than make up for with their cascading vines, low needs and a huge range of colours and varieties.

The vines are perfect for hanging up on walls, windowsills and balconies, as long as they’re not getting too much light! I always think they look great on top of a wardrobe or bookcase where the vines can hang off the side.

The best part about Pothos is how easy they are to propagate, meaning that you can give away cuttings to your mates! If your plant is looking a little too long for your liking, you can cut the stem just below a leaf node, leave the cutting in water and roots will emerge from the vine, ready to plant.

String of Dolphins

This one’s a bit more rare, but doesn’t it look so cool? This plant is perfect for something like a north-facing balcony where it can get plenty of light and hang down from its pot. It can actually store water in those little dolphin leaves, so it really only needs the occasional water when the soil feels super-dry.

If you can’t find a string of dolphins, some other great choices are anything else in the ‘string-of’ family - bananas, fish hooks, pearls and tears. You can usually propagate these by taking a cutting with two or three nodes on it, and letting the roots grow in water for around three weeks or so before popping in some well-draining soil.

Snake Plant

Snake plants, and their cousins in the sansevieria family, are great indoor plants because they tend to grow straight up, don’t need a lot of room and thrive on neglect. I’ve honestly gone a few weeks between waters because I’ve forgotten about them, and they’ve been absolutely fine. However, this definitely cuts both ways - if you’re the kind of person who gets nervous and fusses over their plants, you can end up killing a snake plant with your kindness.

There are a couple of ways to propagate snake plants, but to be honest I’ve never been super successful with the process. They’re a pretty inexpensive plant that you can pick up just about anywhere. Just as a word of warning - they aren’t pet friendly.

Peace Lily

These ones are classics for a good reason. If you’re starting your plant journey, a peace lily is a great pick. They’ve got a couple of great features that really make them shine. The first is that they’re really tough to kill - I’ve had many a peace lily come back from the dead after I’ve forgotten to water them. The second is that they tend to really show when they’re low on water. Some plants will stay looking gorgeous and then suddenly cark it, but with a peace lily you’ll be able to see the difference between when it’s standing tall and well hydrated, or wilted and dried out. You can propagate these from a friend’s plant but it’s a little bit of a process compared to the others. They’re super popular plants so they’ll be available at just about any garden store. They’re strictly an indoor plant though - don’t let it get too much sunlight!

Basil

Some herbs are pretty delicate and are best left to the experts - but there are also a few herbs that you can buy at the store and grow yourself from a cutting! Basil is a great choice if you’re looking to start your herb garden. You can grow it from seed, but another way to get started is just to save a sprig or two from those bundles you buy at the grocery store, put the stems in water and let them grow some roots before planting them in some good soil.

Some grocery stores sell them pre-potted in those huge bundles, but be warned - they are usually a little too close together to survive like that, so you’re best off separating the plants and giving them a little room to grow. Their normal habitat is more Mediterranean, so you need to give it plenty of sun to thrive, and don’t be afraid to chop it back as you need, because it will reward you by growing more stems and becoming even bushier over time.

If you’re interested in picking up a few houseplants, you really can’t go wrong with the above, but I do have a couple of words of advice for you. First off, start out slow and get used to the routine of caring for your plants before you blow out your plant budget. Second, don’t be too discouraged if your plants don’t make it. For every successful plant collection, there are usually plenty of plants you don’t see which never survived the transition to home living. Hopefully you can figure out what went wrong, and adjust from there. Happy growing!