There are people who have never owned indoor plants and all of a sudden, they want to have an indoor plant. They’ve just rented a house or whatever, and they want to have a couple of indoor plants and they’re nervous. Indoor plants look expensive to them, they look like they’re fragile and they don’t know which ones to start out with. So they are what I would call beginners when it comes to indoor plants.
10 of the Sexiest Indoor Plants
Now to start off, for the first plant, I’ve chosen a modern version of the old Spider Grass. Now back in the late sixties and early seventies, Spider Grass, everybody owned one or two or three Spider Grasses and they grew in hanging baskets. But the new version of Spider Grass, instead of having a white stripe down the middle, has a white stripe on the edges, and it has big babies. I’ve seen them in hanging baskets or pots in a very, very classy restaurant. But these are like 10 bucks each. You put them in a hanging basket or a pot and they clean the air, they give you a bit of life, a bit of vitality and they are really, really good value for money. They’re cheap and you just can’t kill them.
Another one is the Pilea peperomioides, more commonly known as the Chinese Money Plant because the leaves sort of look like coins. It’s a great little plant, if you’re after something small to go on a table, maybe in your office or something like that. If you’re real estate salesman and you put one of these money plants, on your desk and it helps you make a fortune then great. The little ones are under $20.
Now say you’re putting your house on the market and you need something big and lively to impress. Well you can get like a metre tall, Bangalow palm, with three or four in a pot for just over $30.
Now Bangalow palms love their water, so to keep it looking good, just keep a tray or saucer underneath it with a bit of water in it. So for low cost you can make your house look really lush with Bangalow palms. And if you keep the water up to them, they last really well.
Now let’s talk about what is the toughest indoor plant? If you’re the kind of person who always kills their indoor plants and you need some real tough indoor plants, let’s look at your options.
Your first choice is a rubber tree. Now, rubber trees are great. They come in all different colours – pinky green, green, etc Now rubber trees are incredibly tough and you can grow one as an indoor plant, then if it gets too big or it gets out of hand or you get sick of it, you can put it outside and it’ll grow in the garden. You can put it in your outdoor entertaining area and it will grow really big, but with beautiful big foliage. Rubber trees are almost impossible to kill, so they are one of the toughest indoor plants and are perfect for an office environment.
Another tough indoor plant variety is the Aspidistra, which has an old nickname of being the “Iron Plant”. It was called this back in Victorian times when houses were really, really dark because they had tiny little windows and everyone had their curtains pulled shut all the time, so this was about the only indoor plant that would grow in a house in Victorian times because it would actually grow with almost no light.
So the name iron plant should indicate just how tough it is. Now they throw up shoots and you put these in another pot and they’ll gradually fill up those pots. One of them can last you for years. And if you want to get a big result with these quickly, you put two or three of these into one pot. You can grow these in any shady spot outdoors, like your indoor/outdoor area, as long as they’re in the shade. You can grow them in the garden, grow them in a pot, they are really, really tough. They have this beautiful foliage that is really lovely and lush – it’s a nice refreshing sort of a plant, and like I said, very, very tough.
Now another tough plant option is your Lady Palm. If you have trouble keeping palms alive or keeping them looking good, this palm is ideal. They look green and lush, are tough and easy to look after. They grow tall and unlike a lot of other palms they don’t spread out wide. So they can fit into a corner really well, even behind some furniture. Personally, I think they are very stylish and classy and they would not look out of place in an expensive hotel or upmarket home – they would look the part
Now your next option is what is commonly called the Mother-in-law’s Tongue. And the most popular form of it is the one with the golden edge on it. They can be a little bit hard to get, but I remember giving one of these to my mom when I was just a kid and I reckon it stood near the entrance to our house for at least 15 years. So this definitely falls into the category of low maintenance and it almost seems that the more you neglect it, the better it will grow. They come in all different forms, like a plain green form and we also sell a little baby short one. Mother-in-law’s Tongue makes an ideal office plant.
Now the trick with these, and this applies to a lot of indoor plants, is when you do water them, give them a good soak. Put them in the laundry trough and soak them, literally drown them and let the water run through until it stops running through and then put them back where they belong. Do this maybe once every 3 weeks or something. A lot of people think that it’s better to give indoor plants small amounts of regular water but that can almost kill them. It’s better to give them a good soak, but not too often.
Now if you’re looking for something small and cute for say the bedroom or the home office or something, I’ll give you three options.
First is the Elephant Ears. My favourite is the burgundy variety which was a beautiful colour on the leaves. It’s gorgeous and a hardy little plant you can keep inside on your desk or something. It’s nice to look at every day.
The next is a little Umbrella Tree. I have one that is growing on a rock sitting in a ceramic dish with water at the bottom so it can just take a drink whenever it needs to. I throw in a little fertiliser every now and then and it’s fine.
Your third option is a Wandering Jew. Now you might think that’s a bit of a racist name but it doesn’t mean anything bad. These were really popular in the sixties and seventies. Today they’ve bred them to be really, really cute and you can get like a tricolour Wandering Jew, which you could grow in a hanging basket or you could grow it as a little ground cover, underneath other plants. Now it can grow sort of like semi outdoors or it could grow indoors. It could be on your kitchen bench or your desk at work and it’s a really pretty little thing that is lovely to look at.
Now a really pretty little plant I love, that’s really bright and lovely is very aptly named the Happy Plant. Now to keep a Happy Plant happy you don’t need to use antidepressants on them!!! They love a lovely bright spot and they like it to be warm, so they really don’t want to be much under about 20 degrees. So you’ve got to keep them in a warm bright room and you can keep them happy. Now with Happy Plants, like I said before give them a good big soak every now and then rather than giving them a tiny bit of water all the time. When you give them a soak, you can put in a little bit of fertiliser, like Thrive or something. Don’t let them get cold in winter and don’t put them in a dark shady corner and they will do well. Like a Lady Palm these grow tall but not wide so they sit well in a bright corner.
Now one of the reasons why it’s good to have indoor plants is that they purify the air. Some people wonder if some plants are better at purifying the air than others, and the reality is that they all are to some degree. The ones that grow really quickly are often the best at purifying the air.
Now if you’re looking for something more unusual for an indoor plant you might like to try a Milk Cactus. (They’ve got a sort of a white sap that pours out of them that can be toxic so just beware.) Your Milk Cactus comes in red or green. The red one needs a bit of light to maintain its red colour. These will grow up quite tall and they do really, really well as an indoor plant. So if you want to have that sort of Mexican or exotic flavour, there’s nothing like a beautiful big Milk Cactus. They’re very hardy and need very little attention. They will grow in the indoor/outdoor area and they don’t need to be out in the sun like a lot of cactuses.
Another exotic looking plant is the Aralia Japonica, which comes in many different varieties. It’s very tough and tropical looking with big leaves that grow bigger and bigger as the plant grows. It comes from Japan. Now if you have an outdoor entertaining area that’s covered and it’s in the shade but gets very cold in the winter, this one here is fabulous. It’ll grow up to about two metres tall and it’ll have beautiful big foliage and look absolutely fabulous and take lots and lots of cold in the winter. You’ll find this to be one of the toughest indoor plants the Aralia Japonica.
Now another plant that comes in all different colours is the Dracaena Marginata or Dragon Plant. Now I get a lot of people come in wanting an indoor plant with a bit of height but not too wide and this is perfect because it stays very compact. It gives you beautiful colourful foliage. You can get it with variegated leaves or with green leaves and it’s incredibly hardy and really good value for money.
You’ll find the Dracaena Marginata is quite cheap and it’s the sort of thing that you’ll keep inside your home for years and years and years. And if you ever get sick of it, you can bung it out in the garden. If you put it in a sheltered spot out in the garden, it’ll grow fine.
Now I’ve given you some ideas on what are the cheap indoor plants and what are the tough indoor plants and what are the easier indoor plants to look after. But what about the title of this article – What are the 10 sexiest indoor plants? Well here you go!
Three Colour Choices
Let’s start off with your Mother-in-Law’s Tongue. If you’ve got a choice between your plain green and silver mother-in-law’s tongue and your gold, green and silver mother-in-law’s tongue I’d definitely choose the latter.
Tall, Tough & Classy
Next comes your Lady Palm, I reckon you can’t beat it. It’s tall, tough and really classy. For toughness I’d say the rubber tree, anyone can grow one. Then you’ve got your iron plant. Now your iron plant can go absolutely anywhere indoors or outdoors undercover, not undercover, as long as it’s in the shade it’ll grow anywhere. It’s green and lush and it’ll last you for years. You really, really can’t kill it.
Add an Exotic Touch
Now I reckon your red and green Milk Cactus are sexy because they give you an exotic flavour and something different from a designer point of view.
Lives a Long Life
Now something new in the mix of sexiest plants is the Monstera Deliciosa. This is very long lived, will grow very tall and is very, very hardy. Often called the Fruit Salad Plant it will actually produce edible fruit if you put it outside. I’ve seen some really enormous ones if you grow them in the right place.
Easy to Look After
Now another contender is the Devil’s Ivy. Back in the hippy days, if you went to a hippy household, they’d have these in water in a glass bottle, climbing up the wall and growing all over the place. Today you can grow them so easily. Wind them around a stake or grow them over a wall or something. They don’t need much light or care or anything really. You can snip the ends of them off and place them in a jug or bottle or water and they will grow just fine.
Great Value for Money
Next is your Bangalow Palm. (Sometimes I joke with people and call it the Bungalow Palm!) It’s great value for money because you can get great big ones for the price of a bunch of flowers. If you want to jazz the house up, get a nice big 1 Metre tall one and it will make your house look green and exciting instantly. Just keep it nice and moist and it’ll keep looking good. If it gets a bit tatty, bang it out in the garden and it’ll grow up and shade your bungalow! (Lol!)
Will Grow Anywhere Indoors
Another contender is the old Spider Grass which we already discussed. This is so easy to grow and it keeps producing new little baby plants. It’s very cheap and it will grow anywhere indoors. Now when I say anyone can grow Spider Grass, I mean it. My grandson is currently growing them, he’s propagating the little babies and selling them for $1 each! So hopefully he’ll end up in the nursery trade one day.
Height Without a Big Pot
But the final contender for sexiest indoor plant is the Dracaena Marginata. It comes in different colours and you can have one in quite a small pot and have it up six foot tall in quite a small pot. So if you need height without a big pot and without too much width, you’d choose Dracaena Marginata. It’s tough, economical and has a long life.
Large, Glossy Leaves & Very Hardy
There’s no surprise this is on my list of sexiest indoor plants. The Rubber Plant is a stunning plant that has very glossy leaves and comes in a variety of single and two-tone colours. It’s also an incredibly tough plant and you can grow one as an indoor plant, then if it gets too big or it gets out of hand or you get sick of it, you can put it outside and it’ll grow in the garden. They’re also very simple to take care of due to their hardiness.
A Pretty & Bright Plant to Keep You Happy
And I thought it quite apt to end off with the Happy Plant for this list of Top 10 Sexiest Indoor Plants. Happy Plants produce glossy green foliage and highly fragrant pink flowers. They love a lovely bright spot and they like it to be warm. So you’ve got to keep them in a warm, bright room and you can keep them happy.
These plants are also considered to bring good luck and are even given as gifts during Chinese New Year!
So there you go, we’ve talked about a lot of indoor plants but the last 10 are the sexiest for sure.
Now a couple of tips with indoor plants. I recommend you always grow them in plastic pots so you can repot them easily. And it’s best to put the plastic pot inside a nice terracotta pot or ceramic pot or some fancy pot so you don’t see it. But don’t forget a tray or something underneath to catch the water or rubber stoppers under the outer pot so as not to damage the carpet or floor.
And as I said before with watering, don’t just give them small amounts of water here and there. Best to take them out to laundry sink and give them a big soaking every couple of weeks or 3 weeks or so. Give them some liquid fertiliser rather than Osmocote because that needs to be “rained in” to work best.
And remember when it comes to choosing which plants, just head to our nursery or come and see me and say “Chris, look I’ve got a corner and it’s a bit dark or it’s light or there’s sun coming in through the window or whatever.” Just tell them, or me what the situation is and ask them what the best plant is. Look at the indoor plant display, explain your situation and ask them for advice on which plant is best for that location.
If you’ve still go any questions about indoor plants, don’t hesitate to come into Hello Hello Nursery and see me or my staff and we will happily answer all your questions, OK? Till next time!
