Houseplants for a humid room, and what they actually do
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Houseplants in a humid room
You will see lists of houseplants sold as natural dehumidifiers, and it is one of those things everybody repeats that does not really hold up. A plant does take water up through its roots and it does lose some of it again through its leaves, so the net effect of a pot of damp soil sitting in your bathroom is that the room ends up with slightly more moisture in it, not less. A room full of plants will not dry out a steamy bathroom, and no amount of them is going to replace opening a window or running the fan.
What they genuinely do is thrive in the conditions that make everything else in that room miserable, and that is worth knowing on its own, because a humid bathroom or a steamy kitchen is one of the few spots in an Australian house where a tropical plant is comfortable without you doing anything for it.
What does fix a humid room
Airflow, and getting the moisture out while it is still warm. An exhaust fan that vents outside rather than into the roof space, a window open for 10 minutes after a shower, and a door left ajar so the air can move will do more in one morning than a shelf of plants will do in a year. Once that is sorted, put the plants in for the look and for the fact that they will be happy there.
Peace lily
Glossy leaves, white flowers, and it will tell you plainly when it wants a drink by drooping the whole lot at once and then perking straight back up an hour after you water it. It likes indirect light and it will cope with a fairly dim corner. Worth knowing that it is toxic to cats and dogs, so think about where it goes if you have either.
Boston fern
A bathroom is close to the only place in a dry-climate house where a Boston fern stays looking good without constant misting. Hang it or put it up on a shelf so the fronds can fall, keep the soil damp and never soggy, and keep it out of a direct hot window.
Spider plant
About as hard to kill as an indoor plant gets. It will take a humid room, a dry room, a bright spot or an average one, and it throws out runners with baby plants on the end that you can pot up and give away. If you have never kept an indoor plant alive, start here.
Areca palm
Tall, arching and it fills a corner that nothing else quite suits. It wants bright indirect light rather than a dim room, and it dislikes drying right out, so it fits a steamy bathroom with a decent window better than a windowless one.
Calathea
The patterned leaves are the reason people buy them and the humidity is the reason they usually die somewhere else in the house. In a bathroom the air is doing the job that a pebble tray does everywhere else. They are fussy about water quality, so if your leaves are browning at the edges try leaving the water to stand overnight before you use it.
Bamboo palm
Another corner filler, a bit tougher than the areca about light, and slow enough that it stays the size you bought it for quite a while. It wants the soil kept evenly damp and it will drop the lower fronds if it dries out badly.
One to leave out of the list
English ivy turns up on nearly every one of these lists and I would not plant it here. It is a serious environmental weed in South Australia, it gets out of gardens and into bushland easily, and a cutting tossed in a green bin or a pot left by the fence is all it takes. There are plenty of trailing plants that do the same job on a shelf without that risk, so use one of those instead.
Keeping them alive
Check the soil before you water rather than watering on a schedule, because a plant in a humid room dries out much more slowly than the same plant in a lounge room and the commonest way to kill one of these is kindness. Most of them want bright indirect light, so a frosted window is fine and a dark internal bathroom is not. And wipe the leaves with a damp cloth now and then, because dust on a leaf blocks the light the plant is already short of.
Shop related products
- Maxicrop Indoor Plant Food Concentrate 250ml. A light liquid feed for potted indoor plants.
- Brunnings Premium Potting Mix 36L. For potting up and repotting.
- Brunnings Perlite 5L. Mixed through to open up a mix that holds too much water.
- Brunnings Sphagnum Moss 150g. For topping pots and for humidity-loving plants.
- Brunnings Vermiculite 5L. Holds moisture in a mix that dries out too fast.
Did you know we keep pots and saucers in the shop from 200mm through to 500mm, and they are not all listed online. Give us a ring on (08) 8536 4333 to check what is on the shelf.
The rest of the range is in our garden centre.
Keep reading
- Which plants actually do well in a steamy bathroom
- How to use a pebble tray to lift humidity for indoor plants
- 14 houseplants you can grow in low light
Calatheas and I have an ongoing disagreement about which room they want to live in, and so far they are winning.
Candeece
Strathalbyn H Hardware
