Where to Put My Indoor Garden

Before you start your indoor garden, you’ll need to evaluate the space in your home to find suitable areas to put your indoor plants. Maybe you’ve already decided which plants you’d like to grow, or maybe you’d just like to add some greenery somewhere. Whichever the case, you’ll need to figure out what physical spaces you have and what growing conditions they’ll each provide for plants in your home.

This article will walk you through the process of examining areas throughout your home to identify the locations that will work best for an indoor garden.

What You’ll Learn

Indoor gardening spaces can be large or small. You can grow plants on a windowsill or the corner of your desk. If you’re more ambitious, you might dedicate larger spaces in your home to indoor gardening. You may even be lucky enough to have a sunroom or enclosed balcony to play with. Whatever your indoor gardening goals, you’ll first need to figure out what spaces you have available and which ones are best suited for the plants you’d like to grow.

Learning Objectives

• Determine what spaces you have available for indoor plants
• Evaluate the natural light from windows each location can provide
• Identify areas with enough space but might need artificial lighting
• Identify indoor microclimates that may affect plant health

How much space do I have

The first thing you need to do is decide how much physical space you’re prepared to dedicate to indoor gardening. Do you just want to add a few houseplants on the windowsills or a side table or do you want to set up a larger indoor garden area? How much space you have will determine how many plants – and what types – you can grow and how big your indoor garden will be. 

The space for growing plants indoors can be as simple as a plant on the windowsill, a desktop, a spot on the floor by the window, or on the kitchen counter. Larger indoor gardens can be set up on a dedicated table or a set of shelves by a window. In larger homes, you might even choose to use a small room or enclosed balcony. 

Take a tour of your home, room by room, and make notes as you go. Where are the windows (and those with wide sills); what side tables or countertops have space for plants; where is there an unused space to add a set of shelves or a dedicated plant table.

If you want to add fresh greenery to your home, there are plenty of spots to tuck in a single houseplant to enhance a room. If you want to be more adventurous, you may need to find larger spaces for an indoor garden.

Here are some examples of spaces you could use for indoor gardening:

• Windowsills: Windowsills are the easiest place to put plants. The plants won’t take up any space in the room, and windows provide plenty of natural light for most houseplants. (See below, “Natural Light Levels”)
• Open floor space beside a window: If your windowsills won’t provide enough space for plants or you have large windows with no sills, you can add a table or set of open shelving to a space in front of a window. In rooms with large windows, plants can be placed directly on the floor by the windows.
• Bay window: The floor space by a bay window isn’t always big enough for a lot of furniture, but it’s a perfect spot to add some tall houseplants.
• Open space under a skylight: Skylights are really just windows in the ceiling. The space under them is a good option for a collection of tropical plants.
• Open space along a wall or in a corner: Any unused open space can be used for an indoor garden, as long as you can provide adequate lighting. (See below, “Determining Natural Light Levels”)
• Kitchen counter: If you want to grow fresh herbs for cooking, you could set up a tabletop planter on a kitchen counter so they’re close at hand for your favorite recipe.
• Sunroom: If you’re lucky enough to have a room with windows on all sides – preferably heated in winter – it would make the perfect space for an indoor garden.
• Enclosed balcony: An area sometimes overlooked or too small for furniture, an enclosed balcony can be the perfect space to dedicate to plants.
• Areas with waterproof flooring: If you have a choice, avoid carpeting. Put your indoor garden in a room with tiles or other flooring that won’t get damaged if – or more likely, when – you spill water while watering your plants.

Finally, when evaluating your home for potential spaces for your indoor garden, avoid high-traffic zones, such as the floor in a hallway or spots too close to seating areas, where plants might be brushed repeatedly. Not only is it annoying, but this can cause damage to foliage and flowers.

Where are the Microclimates in my Home

Outdoor gardeners will be familiar with the idea of microclimates: those areas where the growing conditions differ from the surrounding landscape. This can also happen indoors. There will be locations in some rooms or hallways where the air temperature or humidity levels differ from the rest of the home. It’s important to identify these spots when deciding where you’d like to put your indoor plants.

Here are some examples of where you’d find microclimates in your home, and why they might not be suitable spots for your plants:

Beside exterior doors

Whenever you open a door to go outside – or go back inside – you’ll be letting outdoor air into your home. If you live in a region with winter temperatures below freezing, that means repeated blasts of cold air to indoor locations within a few feet of the door. For some plants, all it takes is one such exposure to cause irreparable damage.

Drafty windowsills in winter

A drafty windowsill in regions with freezing winter temperatures isn’t a good spot for a houseplant. If you can feel a draft or reduced air temperature with your hand, then so will a plant. Plants adapted to indoor temperatures, particularly tropical houseplants, will suffer over time.

Heat sources

The air temperature beside a wood stove, baseboard heater, space heater or central heating vent will be higher than the rest of the room, in some cases by several degrees. The high heat also makes the air very dry. The hot air in these locations causes houseplants to lose moisture through their foliage, causing them to draw up more moisture from the soil. The heat also causes more moisture to evaporate directly from the soil, leaving less available to the plants. Over time, a plant under these conditions will show signs of drought stress.

Air Conditioners

Air conditioners (AC) impact plants the same way as heat sources, only with cold air instead. Heavy blasts of cold air within close range of an AC unit can damage houseplants.

Bathrooms

This is one case of a microclimate that can be beneficial to houseplants. The air in a bathroom is generally more humid than the rest of the home, and most plants will thrive in these conditions as long as they also get adequate light.

Determining Natural Light Levels

One of the most important factors for growing plants is how much light they get in a day. For an indoor garden, light can be provided either by natural sunlight shining in through the windows, or with the addition of artificial lighting. Let’s look at natural lighting.

Light for plant growth is not only about duration (how many hours of light it receives in a day) but also about intensity (how strong the light is).

The light shining through panes of glass will be less intense than the same light shining on a plant outdoors. Add sheer curtains to the window, and the light intensity is reduced even further. As a result, a plant may tolerate more hours of direct indoor light than it would outdoors. Put another way, an indoor plant may need more hours of direct light by a window than it might need if it were growing outdoors. It’s something to keep in mind when choosing which plants to put in various locations indoors.

The intensity of the sun also changes with the time of year. (Most of us don’t need to worry about putting on sunscreen in the dead of winter!) You might need to move your plants around from season to season.

The sunlight shining into a room will shift as the sun moves through the sky throughout the day. The duration of sunlight also varies depending on which direction the window is facing.

East: An east-facing window receives direct sun for several hours in the morning, and then moderately bright light for the rest of the day. It’s a good spot for plants labelled “part sun” or “part shade” that like only a few hours of direct sun in a day.

West: A west-facing window receives good light mid-day onward, with direct sun in the afternoon. The light will be hotter and more intense than the morning light in an east-facing window. South windows are also good locations for plants  labelled as “part sun” or “part shade” 

South: A south-facing window will be the brightest spot in the house, receiving good light all day. It’s a suitable spot for sun-loving plants like vegetables and those labelled “full sun”

North: A north-facing window receives the least amount of direct sunlight but the lowlight level will be consistent throughout the day. North-facing windows are suitable for plants that like lower light levels without any direct sun.

When considering the amount of light shining through a window, it is important to note that the intensity of light decreases the further away from the window you go.  Houseplants described as needing “bright indirect sun” should be placed 2-3 feet away from a window that gets direct sun.

The other aspect of natural indoor light is that light levels in a room will change as the angle of the sun in the sky changes throughout the seasons. A north or south-facing window may receive more hours of direct sun further into the room in the winter when the sun is lower in the sky. However, winter sunlight is less intense than summer sun.

A quick way to eye-ball the intensity of natural light in a given location is to look at the shadows it creates. If the shadows are clearly defined, with sharp outlines, the light can be considered as bright light. If the shadows are faint and not very clear, then the location is a low-light spot. This strategy isn’t precise, but it will give you a rough measure of the light, which is good enough for most indoor gardeners.

If you’re growing specialty plants or you’d just like to be more precise in your light assessment, you can always invest in a light meter. Photographers will be familiar with the concept of using a light meter to measure light levels. Gardeners can do the same thing. There are inexpensive light meter apps available to download on your cell phone or you might choose to invest in a hand-held light meter. These hand-held devices can get expensive, though, so they’re usually used by more advanced gardeners.

Sometimes natural light through the windows won’t be sufficient for the plants you want to grow. Vegetables and many flowering plants need well over ten hours of intense direct sunlight to produce well. If you don’t have a lot of window space for your plants, or you live in a basement apartment, you’ll need to invest in artificial lighting for your plants. You may also choose to use plant lights to enhance the levels of light beyond what the windows can provide.

Just remember, if you decide to invest in plant lights, locate your indoor garden close to an electrical outlet. Some types of plant lights may not be suitable for the use of extension cords. In addition, you don’t want trailing cords to create tripping hazards in your home.

Another detail to keep in mind when considering various rooms is the paint color on the walls. Lighter colors will allow natural light shining in through windows to bounce around the room, making the room brighter for plants. Dark colors on the walls will do the opposite, and make the room less hospitable for plants.

Putting it All Together

Once you’ve decided how much space you’d like to commit to indoor gardening and evaluated the natural light in all your rooms, you’re ready to choose where to put your indoor garden. 

Once you’ve evaluated the rooms in your home for available space and adequate natural light levels, choose where you’d like to put your indoor garden. In spaces that receive little or no natural light, you’ll need to add artificial lighting. In these cases, look for accessible electrical outlets. You don’t want to be using extension cords and creating tripping hazards.

Once you’ve decided where you’re going to put your indoor garden – with or without artificial lighting – you’re ready to choose plants to match your available spaces.