Dorm Room Plant Ideas: Choosing Plants For Dorm Rooms

College life can be rough. You spend half your days inside the classroom and often the other half in the library or inside studying. Yet, the stressed student can benefit from the relaxing effects of plants in their dorm room. Plants provide easy dorm room décor, help freshen the air, and liven up dreary spaces. Many industrial housing situations are in big concrete buildings with limited light, so choosing the right dorm room plants is essential. Let's look at some nearly foolproof plants for dorm rooms that are easy to care for and hard to kill.

Plants for Dorm Rooms

Choose plants that match the surrounding conditions. If you are in a cold, dank basement devoid of much sunlight there are still options for you. Plants suitable for low light situations may include:

• Snake plant (mother-in-law's tongue)
• Philodendron
• Grape ivy
• Lucky bamboo
• ZZ Plant

Plants that come from rainforests are ideal choices, since the dim light is similar to the dappled sun they receive as understory plants. The space with average light has more choices for dorm room plants. Dorm room plants that thrive in moderate lighting include:

• Ferns
• Ivies
• African daisies
• Cacti and other succulents

Warmer rooms with southern to western exposure will play host to some flowering plants as well as cactus and herbs.

Dorm Room Plant Ideas

In addition to lighting, spacing is an important consideration. Some varieties of climbing philodendron can get up to the ceiling in just a year or two. Any plant that gets too big to be moved in such a short amount of time should be taken off the list of possible dorm room décor. Plants add elegance and simple comfortable touches, but dorm room décor should be functional. If you spend time and energy keeping your plants healthy, it will be an unfortunate graduation present to have to leave them behind. Some dorm room plant ideas include a mixed herb pot that can be used to add life to hot pot or microwaved meals. You can also plant aquatic plants in an aquarium or keep small moisture loving plants in a glass terrarium. To keep high light plants healthy in low light industrial buildings, use a plant light or florescent bulb in place of the incandescent light bulb in a regular lamp. Take your ferns and humidity loving plants to the shower with you once a week to soak up the steam and ambient moisture.

Basic Care for Dorm Room Plants

• Ensure that the container you keep your plant in has numerous drainage holes.
• Use a good quality houseplant soil mixture and follow the watering instructions for your variety of plant.
• Most pot-bound plants benefit from a liquid fertilizer in spring and then twice per month until winter. Dilute it to half strength to prevent burning the roots.
• Pinch off areas that are unhealthy and watch for pests and disease.

Indoor plants will purify your air and enrich your living space, even if they are tiny and temporary!