Indoor succulents - light, water and the right plants

A succulent stores water in its leaves, and that one fact decides everything about keeping one indoors. It wants the brightest window you have, and it wants the soil to dry out completely before the next watering. This page covers the light, the watering and which species actually cope in a room.

Give it the brightest window in the place. A sharp midday shadow means enough light.
Water only when the soil is dry all the way down, never on a fixed day.
Most succulents are the wrong plant for a wall pocket. Two on this page are not.

The best indoor succulents and why they cope

The types of indoor succulents that cope are the ones that grew in shade under other plants rather than out in open desert, and that is a short list. The snake plant heads it. It holds a dim corner for months without complaint, and it is itself a succulent, storing its water in those upright leaves.

The ZZ plant is the other one worth naming on its own. It keeps its water in a tuber underground rather than in its leaves, which is why it is the one plant here that copes with a room getting no direct sun at all.

Aloe. Upright, tough and happy on a sunny sill. It is on the ASPCA toxic list for cats and dogs, and so is jade.
Echeveria. The classic rosette, and the one that wants the most light. It stretches faster than anything else here when it does not get it.
Haworthia. Small, striped and slow growing, so it forgives a windowsill that only catches sun for part of the day.
Jade. A tree in miniature. Given a bright spot and a pot that drains it reaches knee height indoors over several years.
String of hearts. A succulent that trails, storing water in small tubers along the stems rather than in fat leaves.
Hoya. Thick waxy leaves that hold water the same way, and it takes a bright spot out of the midday beam.

Are succulents indoor or outdoor plants?

A succulent is an outdoor plant that puts up with being indoors, and your window decides whether it puts up with yours. Almost every species sold as a houseplant grows wild in open ground, where the light is fierce and the rain is rare.

Indoors the light runs short long before the water does, which is the whole difficulty in one sentence. A room with a south or west window keeps one for years. A room without one still can, under a grow light.

How much light indoor succulents need

A succulent wants the brightest window in the place, and a few hours of direct sun is a bonus rather than a risk for most of them. Succulents indoors fail from too little light far more often than from too much.

Measure what you actually have rather than guessing. Hold a hand a foot above the spot at midday and look at the shadow. A sharp-edged shadow means enough light, a soft grey one is marginal, and no shadow at all means no succulent.

In a genuinely dim room the plant stretches, pales and leans towards the glass, and Iowa State Extension describes the same result as lanky and pale growth. It happens slowly enough that most people never connect it to the spot they chose. A dark room wants a different plant, and low light houseplants covers those.

How often to water indoor succulents

You water a succulent when the soil is dry all the way down, not on a day of the week. The leaves are the plant’s own water store, so a dry spell is the condition it evolved for and a permanently wet root is the one it has no defence against.

Two checks tell you where you are. Push a finger in to the second knuckle, then lift the pot. One that has dried out is noticeably lighter than the same pot after a soak. The Missouri Botanical Garden gives lifting the pot as the quickest read on how much water the soil is holding.

Then the condition that overrides the rest. The same plant on a bright windowsill empties its pot far faster than one standing in the middle of the room, so the light sets the frequency and the calendar never does. Water thoroughly when you do water, and pour away whatever collects in the saucer.

Soil and pots for indoor succulents

The best soil for indoor succulents is gritty and free-draining, in a pot with a hole in the bottom, and the hole matters more than the mix. The Royal Horticultural Society puts them in very free-draining gritty compost and says they should never be left standing in water.

Ordinary potting compost holds water around the roots for days, which is exactly the state the plant cannot survive. Grit or coarse sand opened through it lets the water leave. A bagged cactus and succulent mix from any garden centre does the same job without you measuring anything.

The pot is half the answer. Terracotta loses water through its wall as well as its hole, which speeds up the drying this plant is waiting for.

Large and tall indoor succulents

The large indoor succulents are the tree-forming kinds rather than the rosettes, and they end up on the floor instead of a windowsill. Jade is the common one, and NC State Extension describes a mature plant taking the form of a miniature tree. The tall euphorbias and the tree aloes do the same.

What changes at that size is the watering, and it catches people out. A large pot of gritty mix takes far longer to dry through than a small one, so a plant that wanted water regularly on the windowsill now wants it much less often. The pot is also too heavy to lift, so the finger test replaces the weight test.

A tiny pot does the opposite. It dries through so fast on a sunny sill that it is the easiest way to underwater a plant sold to you as drought-proof.

Indoor succulents on a wall

Most succulents are the wrong plant for a wall pocket, and that is worth saying before anything else. The pocket holds 1.8 litres of substrate, and a desert succulent’s whole defence against drought is a root system that expects to dry out completely and fast. A deep, damp root run is the one condition it has no answer to, and it rots from the middle where you cannot see it happening.

A kokedama fails the same plant for the same reason, from the other direction. The two that do cope are the snake plant and the string of hearts, both botanically succulents and both already on this page, because they tolerate a damper and deeper root run than an echeveria ever will. Among indoor hanging succulents the string of hearts is the one that trails over the edge of a board. The plant care guide has the rest of what suits the pocket.

These steps are for the plants that suit the pocket, not for a desert succulent.
Fill the pocket a third full with potting mix and press it level.
Slide the plant out of its nursery pot and loosen the root ball with your fingers.
Sit it in the pocket, top up around it and water slowly until the substrate is evenly damp.

Indoor succulent problems and how to fix them

Almost everything that goes wrong with an indoor succulent is too little light or too much water, and the leaves tell you which of the two you have.

What you see	Why	The fix
Stretched pale growth leaning at the window	Too little light	Move it brighter. The stretched stem never shortens, so take a cutting of the good growth.
Soft translucent lower leaves	Too much water	Stop watering until the soil is dry throughout, then water less often.
Shrivelled wrinkled leaves	Too little water	Water thoroughly and let the excess drain away.
White cottony spots in the leaf joints	Mealybug	Dab each one with a cotton bud dipped in surgical spirit and check again weekly.

How to grow a new succulent from a leaf

A single leaf taken cleanly off an echeveria or a jade grows into a whole new plant, and the step people skip is letting the wound dry before it touches anything damp.

Twist the leaf off sideways so none of it stays behind on the stem.
Leave it dry and out of direct sun until the break has sealed over. A wet wound rots instead of rooting, which is where most attempts fail.
Lay it on dry mix without burying it.
Wait for pink roots to appear and find their own way down into the mix.
Start watering only once a small rosette has formed at the base of the leaf.

Are succulents safe for cats and dogs?

The answer follows the species rather than the category. Aloe is on the ASPCA toxic list for cats and dogs, and haworthia, which is similar enough to be confused with it on a shop shelf, is not. Check the species before you buy rather than trusting the word succulent.

Can a succulent live in a room with no window?

No. A windowless room offers no light the plant can use, and a succulent will not show the damage for months, which is why people believe it works. A grow light solves it, and a genuinely dim room is better served by a different plant.

Do indoor succulents flower?

Some do, and the condition is light rather than age or feeding. Indoor flowering succulents are almost always sitting on a bright windowsill. The same plant in the middle of a room will not, and no fertiliser changes that.

How often should you water indoor succulents in winter?

Much less than in summer, and for two reasons at once. The plant slows down as the light gets short, and the mix stays wet for longer in a cooler room. The check does not change all year, only the answer it gives you.

Can I use indoor potting mix for succulents?

Not on its own. Ordinary compost holds water around the roots for days, the one condition a succulent has no defence against, and opening it up with grit or coarse sand fixes that. A bagged cactus and succulent mix does the same thing without any measuring.