Hanging plants indoor - which ones last and where to hang them
Which hanging plants survive indoors, how much light they need up high, how to water one you cannot reach, and what to hang it from without guesswork.
Pothos, spider plant and philodendron Brasil are the hanging plants indoor that last longest with the least attention. All three cope with indirect light and forgive an irregular watering week. What decides whether they survive is the light reaching the hook, and a hook usually sits further from the window and in warmer air than it looks.
The best indoor hanging plants for a first try
The best indoor hanging plants for a first try are pothos, spider plant, philodendron Brasil and tradescantia. All four take indirect light, bounce back from a missed week and resprout after a trim. Pothos is the most forgiving, though it prefers bright indirect light, and the variegated forms lose their pattern when they do not get it.
That difference is what the table sorts by, and it is also what "low maintenance" actually means here. Easy indoor hanging plants are the ones that tolerate drying out, so a forgotten week costs you nothing. None of them tolerate being ignored.
String of hearts is the opposite case to pothos and worth understanding before you buy it. It stores water in small tubers, so it shrugs off drought, but it wants plenty of bright indirect light before the strands come in dense. In a dim corner you get one long thread with the leaves far apart.
Hanging vine plants indoor that trail the fastest
Pothos and philodendron Brasil put on length fastest, and they do it faster the more light they get. Tradescantia is quicker still and pays for it, because indoor hanging vine plants that race in low light go bare at the top first.
That bareness is a light reading before it is a pruning problem. Trailing indoor plants for hanging baskets keep extending the stem while the new leaves come in smaller, so move the hook first and tidy the plant second.
Small hanging plants indoor for a shelf
Some plants stay small permanently, and those are the ones a shelf wants. Peperomia and string of hearts are small hanging plants indoor by habit, so they hold a shelf without taking over the wall behind it.
Hanging indoor succulent plants are the same size class with the opposite watering need. Thick leaves already carry water, so they rot from kindness rather than dry out from neglect.
How much light indoor hanging plants need up high
Indoor hanging plants up high need more light than they look like they need, because hanging a plant almost always moves it away from the window. A university extension service describes low-light spots as the ones far from a window or in heavy shade.
It also flags the thing that catches people out. Your eye adapts in seconds, so a corner that looks bright to you can be a fraction as bright as the shelf next to the glass.
The plant tells you before anything else does. New leaves come in smaller than the old ones and the bare stretch of stem between them gets longer, so hanging indoor plants go thin at the top. If that is already happening, move the hook before you change the plant.
Do hanging grow lights for indoor plants help
Yes, where a room genuinely has no usable daylight, and no, as a substitute for moving the plant somewhere better. Hanging grow lights for indoor plants put out far more usable intensity than the ceiling bulb you already have, which does almost nothing for a plant.
A hung plant is the awkward case, because it already sits near the ceiling where the fitting would go. Measure the drop you actually have before you buy anything, or you end up with a lamp you cannot place.
Low light hanging plants indoor, and what they give up
What low light hanging plants indoor give up is growth. They stay alive and stop filling out, because a plant that tolerates a dim corner is not the same as a plant that grows in one, and you see the gap sooner up high, where the stems keep extending while the leaves get smaller.
So the best indoor hanging plants for low light are the ones you are happy to have stay the same size. If you want the plant to fill out, low light indoor hanging plants are the wrong shortlist and the low light houseplants guide has the species that genuinely hold up.
Watering hanging plants indoor without a stepladder
There is no answer in days. A hanging container dries faster than the same plant on the floor, because warm air collects near the ceiling and because a suspended pot loses moisture from every side. A university extension service says the same about hanging baskets, which can dry out very quickly.
The check is the finger test. Push a finger into the mix to the first knuckle. If it comes out with damp mix stuck to it, leave it, and if it comes out clean and dry, water. It is the same test that works for any houseplant, and low-maintenance hanging plants indoor simply give you the "leave it" answer more often.
Water in measured amounts rather than soaking. A hanging pot given half a litre in one go sheds the surplus wherever it can, and what is underneath is your floor or your wall.
Where indoor hanging plants work in a living room or a bedroom
The room decides less than where the window sits inside it. A living room with the pot at the far end gives less light than a bathroom with the pot against the glass, so look first at where the hook falls relative to the window.
- The living room. Usually the best light in the home and also the longest run between the window and the wall you want to decorate. A Spider plant handles that distance best, because it keeps producing offsets in medium indirect light.
- The bedroom. Often the room with the blind half down. Count how many hours of real daylight it gets before you hang anything there.
- The bathroom. Humidity works in favour of ferns, and a Boston fern is the one that appreciates it most. It still needs a window, however small.
- The kitchen. Warm air, sharp temperature swings and grease in suspension. Tough, wipeable leaves do best here, which means pothos or philodendron Brasil.
Hanging plants indoor ideas for a room with no ceiling hook
A shelf bracket, the side of a bookcase, a curtain pole end and a wall bracket all put the plant closer to the glass than a ceiling hook does. In most rooms the ceiling is the furthest point from the window, which is the one place people hang things by default.
Every one of those costs you something. Indoor hanging plants ideas that put the plant high look better in a photograph and make watering harder, so pick the height you can still reach standing up.
Hanging baskets, pots and planters for indoor plants
The container decides how often you water and how much the whole thing weighs, which makes it a decision rather than a finish. Hanging planters for indoor plants come in four shapes that behave very differently once there is a wet plant in them.
Weight is the part people skip. Indoor hanging pots for plants with a reservoir are the heaviest of the four before the plant goes in, so check what the hook is screwed into. If you forget to water, that same reservoir buys you the most room for error.
If you overwater, indoor hanging baskets for plants punish it least, because an open weave sheds surplus instead of holding it against the roots. The best plants for indoor hanging baskets are the ones that like drying out between drinks, which brings you back to Hoya and the succulents.
Indoor wall hanging plants: how to put one up
What holds indoor wall hanging plants is the fixing, and the fixing has to survive the weight of the thing once it has been watered, which is when it is heaviest. A wall piece hangs on a wall hook, so you are going to drill a hole. If you would rather not, the limits of each alternative are set out in the guide to hang plants without drilling.
Ignore any advice that offers a suction cup or an adhesive hook for a planted container. Those are rated for a picture frame, and a pot gains weight every time you water it.
On weight itself, the useful reference is a framed picture of the kind already on your walls. It hangs the same way and takes the same plugs. A planted canvas such as the Living Canvas works on that principle, hinges over two wall hooks, and it is the format most things sold as plant pictures are copying.
Real hanging plants indoor or faux ones
Real hanging plants indoor grow and can die. Faux hanging plants indoor do neither, and that is the whole trade. In between sit preserved plants, which are real plant material treated to keep its look. They do not grow, they are not watered, and they fade over the years.
The choice is simpler than a shop makes it look. If the spot gets light from a window and you can reach it with a watering can, buy it alive. If it is a windowless hallway or a height you need a ladder for, artificial hanging plants indoor do the job and nobody has to pretend they are alive.
Covering a whole wall rather than one point is a different decision, and the living wall guide compares those formats.
What we checked about hanging plants indoor
This page rests on two different things. What university extension services publish about light and watering, linked in the text so you can read it yourself, and what has been measured directly on the piece. Anything unmeasured is named as unmeasured.
Conclusion - hanging plants indoor
Pick the spot first and the plant second. Stand in front of the hook you have in mind and answer two questions. Can you see the window from there, and can you reach it with a watering can without standing on something. Two yeses and a pothos or a philodendron Brasil will last you years. One no, and change the hook before you buy the plant.
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