Large Houseplant Ideas & Benefits

Houseplants are a fantastic way to bring the garden indoors. As well as being gorgeous and decorative, houseplants will also provide a lot of advantages to your home. It doesn’t matter whether you have a small first flat to a large family home, any space will benefit when introducing them.

There are so many lovely houseplants to choose from there’s little to wonder why they have significantly jumped in popularity. In this post, we’re going to run through different types of large houseplants to put you in the know and present ideas for your home space and create quite the statement.

Ready? Let’s go!

We touched upon some of the benefits to your home, health and wellbeing already. But did you know there’s a lot of solid research around their positive benefits to us? Really! Houseplants have been part of many an academic study on the benefits nature and greenery bring to us as human beings. For instance, they can improve air quality up to 30% (depending on the number used) vs a comparable home that has none and remove Volatile Organic Compounds (VOCs) from your indoor environment. It has been noted they can also help to add humidity to a room/space, which means less dry and dusty air to irritate your airways, cause runny noses, and itchy eyes.

Numerous studies have also found a connection between indoor plants and mental health. They create feelings of relaxation from stress and anxiety, prolong attention spans, boost self-esteem, offer inspiration, and create positivity within us. This goes so far as to aid our natural recovery processes. It has been documented that for hospital patients, plants and flowers had lowered blood pressure, raised pain tolerance, lowered anxiety, and lowered fatigue than patients who stayed in rooms without plants.

With the cost of living impacting many people’s lives, and causing higher stress, anxiety, and longer times spent indoors, indoor plants have really came to the forefront of people’s minds as a method to mitigate these effects. With everything they can do for us, we think you’ll agree with us when we say that plants are pretty special things.

Do you want to make a statement, create an urban jungle in your flat, or is it more about health and wellbeing? We say: why not have it all? A collection of large and tall indoor plants can create quite the statement in a room or throughout the home. Do you want to green up the office? Or make the air cleaner in your bedroom? How about filling that corner you’ve never known what to do with? Do you want a plant with large leaves, something tropical looking, bold in colour, or is it more about air-purification? Read on and our guide to large house plants will help you decide.

Whether you want something tall, medium sized, big leafed, small leafed, sharp leafed, air-purifying or to create a bit of a ‘wow’ statement… we have you covered. The only problem you might encounter is deciding which one or several of these fantastic houseplants to buy for your home.

Fiddle Leaf Fig

Whether you want something tall, medium sized, big leafed, small leafed, sharp leafed, air-purifying or to create a bit of a ‘wow’ statement… we have you covered. The only problem you might encounter is deciding which one or several of these fantastic house plants to buy for your home.

Snake Plant

The Snake Plant is great for the beginner, or those who want easy maintenance. It’s a phenomenally forgiving plant, actually in a reasonable context it’s nigh on indestructible. This is down to their adaptability to a vast array of growing conditions because they are succulents, which means they store water in their leaves, and this in turn contributes significantly to what makes them resilient to neglect. They are also very shade tolerant. Furthermore, Snake Plants grow upwards which makes them particularly good for smaller spaces. They are a great choice for any home.

Rubber Plant

Despite the name, this plant is real. It is so named because its sap can be used to make rubber. It’s also quite retro as it has been popular since Victorian times, but there are newer varieties around now too. The rubber plant is recognised by its large, oval-shaped, glossy looking leaves. It is very low-maintenance, and as it filters airborne toxins is one of the best air-purifying indoor plants you can have. The typical height can be up to two metres. While vertical growing, it can get a bit unkempt and scraggly over time so will benefit from some light pruning occasionally. Note: wear gloves because the sap is very sticky.

Lemon and Lime Draceana

The Lemon and Lime Dracaena is one of the more statement creating indoor plants on our list. The lovely yellow and green striped leaves are perfect for drawing the eye and adding character, but if that doesn’t do it then its size surely will: they can grow past 1.5m tall. Do not let the height put you off though, as it’s quite a neat plant in the sense that the leaves grow off a very thick and sturdy stem in what looks like an elegantly arranged rosette. It needs a moderate level of light and is a beautiful way to brighten up any room in your home.

Kentia Palm

The Kentia Palm plant, with its slender divided leaves that fan outwards are perfect for adding an elegant touch of the exotic to any space. The Kentia Palm is slow growing too and will take a little bit of extra care and attention over time from you, but the positive is that you’ll be rewarded with a beautifully sculpturesque plant that makes for a real statement in any room. When we say a little extra care and attention, we mean it. This pretty plant is still relatively low maintenance and can tolerate shady conditions, drier air, and a little bit of neglect.

Yucca Elephantipes

Now here’s one that wants a lot of sunlight. Yucca’s are desert plants, so it needs it. Yucca’s are characterised by their thick trunk-like stems, and long, angular, immaculate, sword-like leaves that grow in a kind of rosette and arch upwards. Because they come from the desert, they are particularly efficient at storing water, so it only needs watering now and again. A Yucca or two would add extra impact to a well-lit room or conservatory.

Olive Tree

If you’ve seen a real olive tree, you’ll know they are pretty unsuitable for indoors. However, thanks to the cultivation of dwarf varieties, even indoor gardeners can enjoy raising this attractive plant. The lovely dwarf olive tree has a rounded head of small, delicate looking leaves. It grows to be about two metres tall and will produce olives even while growing to its full height. Perfect if you want to add a sense of the Mediterranean around your home. It’s quite tolerant of hot conditions and likes full sun. It will need more regular watering than many of the other large indoor plants on our list.

Calamondin Orange Tree

Wouldn’t it be cool, and quite an interesting focal point in your home, to grow your own fruit? Well, we can happily tell you that you can! The Calamondin Orange Tree can survive inside your home, produce small oranges, and produce a lovely citrusy scent. The fruit can be quite tart and can even replace a lemon in recipes. It has lovely glossy green foliage and makes for an overall pretty addition to any space. Keep this one in full sun, it loves it, and the more sun it gets the more fruit and foliage it will produce.

Money Tree

Not to be confused with the Jade ‘Money’ Plant, the charming Money Tree (Pachira Aquatica) has a central trunk of stems that braid together reaching the top where it forms five lobed leaves. This braid characteristic is said to lock in the good fortune the tree brings, indeed, according to the Chinese Feng Shui the Money Tree creates positive chi and brings prosperity and good luck. The stems at the top of the plant can be fragile so it might be best placed in an area it won’t accidentally be damaged. It’s quite a fast-growing plant, likes a bright room, and generally does very well indoors. Oh, and it’s great for air-purification too.

Jade Plant

Jade Plants are attractive plants, almost like a bonsai tree in the way it grows with its miniature trunk and branches. It’s a succulent too, which means it retains a lot of water in its leaves. That means you don’t have to spray or water it too often. Also known as the ‘money plant’ as according to the Chinese Feng Shui it brings good luck, wealth, prosperity, and good fortune. How about that? A welcome addition and nice talking point for any room. It’s leaves are quite juicy and thick, oval-shaped, and often a deep jade green colour, sometimes with hints of reds at the leaf edges. Easy to care for and just need to be in a bright room. It can reach over two metres, but it grows very slowly so it will take years for that to happen.

Parlour Palm

Another Palm for the list, and that’s because they are just so popular! The Parlour Palm is a great indoor plant. It has all the elegant, tropical characteristics of a palm, with its densely packed, bright green leaves and slender stems, and great air-purifying qualities, better still it is very, very, easy to care for, possibly one of the easiest. If low maintenance is a significant requirement for you of any large indoor plant, then you will not go wrong here. It’s fairly shade tolerant but bright, indirect light will encourage more growth and even some small yellow-ish flowers to bloom.

Umbrella Plant

A well-known house plant with great dark-green and gold colours on its leaves.  The leaves are arranged around the stem in an umbrella-like shape, which leads to its common name. The number of leaves increases as the plant ages giving it a fuller look. It has great air-purification qualities so it would be perfect for a stuffy room. Just make sure it gets plenty of bright but indirect sunlight though. Umbrella Plants are quite resilient, if they have been neglected for a while and the leaves begin to fall off it can recover well with care.

Caring for your large indoor plants is relatively easy, some require more care and water than others, so it pays to know what level of care they’ll require before purchasing. However, they look more intimidating than they actually are, as despite their size, most are easy and straightforward to care for.

Caring for your large indoor plants is relatively easy, some require more care and water than others, so it pays to know what level of care they’ll require before purchasing. However, they look more intimidating than they actually are, as despite their size, most are easy and straightforward to care for.

They’re not really affected too much by light levels either. Bright but indirect light from a nearby window should be all that they need to flourish. Be aware that direct sunlight can burn and kill a lot of indoor plants. Depending on the species some can tolerate exceptionally low light levels.

So, when it comes to caring for them, they are all quite low effort and maintenance. But, we advise checking the individual requirements of the plants you like before buying. There are few things in life less fussy than indoor plants!

In most cases, you can put your house plants anywhere, in any room. They all need sunshine, but each plant needs a different amount, and direct sunlight will do more harm than good in most cases.

Also be thoughtful to the plant, even though there’s a perfect spot for them to match your décor, it doesn’t mean it’s the best place for the house plant, so try not to get too hung up on buying and placing for only decorative purposes.

Some other questions you should have a think about are:

• What are my main aims?
• What direction are my windows facing?
• What’s the average temperature in my house and are there differences in certain rooms where I’ve thought to put some plants?
• Do my heaters affect positions?
• Is this area too shaded?

Consider these and you’ll be well on your way to choosing the house plants that are right for you and your spaces.

Now you have a better grasp of the various large indoor house plants on offer (and there are more available) you can decide what ones best suit your lifestyle and goals. Thankfully, most house plants are relatively low maintenance compared to outdoor plants, so they’ll fit in with even the busiest of lifestyles or novice gardeners. Given all the positive aspects they bring to your home and you, we think they are certainly worth the small amounts of time effort to care for them.