Plants for Dorm Room | 12 Easy Plants to Grow in Your Dorm Room
This post is all about plants for dorm room.
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When you’re trying to decide how you want to decorate your dorm room, you might have already picked out your bedding, furniture, and wall decorations, but don’t forget about plants! Adding a few indoor plants for dorm space is a great way to make your space feel greener, prettier, more relaxing, and overall more aesthetically pleasing.
But, did you know that keeping houseplants in your dorm room can also have health benefits? Studies have shown that indoor plants can help reduce your stress levels, boost your productivity, heighten your mood, and even improve the air quality in your room!
If you’ve never taken care of a plant before and are worried you might have a black thumb, don’t worry! We’ve rounded up 12 easy plants to grow in your dorm room, all of which combine the health benefits of indoor plants with the lush, gorgeous aesthetic of indoor greenery! Each of these easy plants is a great beginner’s houseplant. Who knows, this might be the start of your journey to becoming a bona fide gardener!
Here are 12 Easy Plants to Grow in Your Dorm Room.
THE EASY PLANTS TO GROW
1. ALOE
Aloe is a succulent, which means that it’s a great beginner plant for someone who’s never taken care of a houseplant before.
Aloe doesn’t require special fertilizer and it also doesn’t need to be watered super often, making it super low maintenance.
The only thing you need to do to make sure that your aloe plant thrives is to keep it near a window that gets lots of direct sunlight, so you can recreate the sunny desert environment that helps aloe grow.
Plus, if you cut open an aloe leaf, it’s full of cooling, soothing gel, perfect for healing bug bites or sunburns!
2. SNAKE PLANT
Snake plants are another super easy and popular indoor plants for college students. Their stylish vibe is perfect for an aesthetic dorm room.
Their leaves are super tall and vibrant green, with yellow or cream stripes. If you take good care of your snake plant for a couple of years, it might even grow to a height of two feet!
Snake plants thrive in a warm, dry environment. That means that in the summer, you should water your snake plant every two weeks, and in the winter, you should water it once every two months.
Just be careful not to overwater your snake plant, that’s basically the only way you could possibly kill it!
3. SPIDER PLANT
If you’ve ever wanted to try growing your own hanging plant, spider plants are the perfect place to start.
Their long, cascading green leaves look beautiful when grown in a hanging container or placed on top of a tall column or table.
Spider plants are best for people who have slightly more experience with growing indoor plants, as they need regular watering and fertilization, and will eventually need to be repotted once they outgrow their original container.
However, the benefits of spider plants are definitely worth that extra work. In addition to being beautiful, spider plants have also been proven to help purify the air of indoor spaces!
4. POTHOS
Pothos, best known for their beautiful heart-shaped leaves, are another great option if you’re interested in growing a hanging plant in your dorm room.
They grow quickly even in low-light environments, making them a great option for people whose dorms don’t get a lot of natural light.
They also don’t require a lot of watering, making them super low-maintenance. All you need to do is water them when their soil gets completely dry and their leaves start to droop a little!
If you want your dorm to look like a garden or greenhouse, pothos is a great plant for you. They grow super quickly, up to eighteen inches in a single month, so your dorm will look verdant and lush in no time!
5. LUCKY BAMBOO
Lucky bamboo is one of the best plants for college dorms, well-known in the plant community for being nearly indestructible.
Fun fact: although lucky bamboo obviously has “bamboo” in the name and looks just like a tiny version of giant bamboo, it’s actually a succulent, and not related to bamboo at all!
Lucky bamboo can grow in pebbles or even in a vase filled with an inch of standing water, making it another great low-maintenance indoor plant.
Plus, in addition to being super cute, multiple stalks of lucky bamboo also represent good fortune and luck in Chinese culture!
6. ECHEVERIA
Echeveria are succulents, best known for their gorgeous rosette shape, making them look like a cross between an aloe plant and a flower.
Like all succulents, all echeveria need to thrive is a bright, sunny environment and infrequent watering.
Basically, you should only water your echeveria when the soil has completely dried out, once every ten-ish days in the summer months and once per month in the winter.
If you love the look of flowers but aren’t ready for more high-maintenance flowering houseplants, echeveria are the perfect compromise.
7. PEACE LILY
However, if you are ready to graduate to a flowering indoor plant, peace lilies are a beautiful place to start.
They’re famous for their glossy, deep green leaves. About twice a year, they’ll burst into bloom, creating regal white lily flowers.
Peace lilies need low sunlight, but not too much direct sunlight. They also require moderately moist soil at all times, and thrive best when regularly fed with fertilizer in the summer months.
This means that they’re a good choice for people who already have a little bit of experience with taking care of plants.
8. DONKEY’S TAIL
Donkey’s tail is the perfect cross between a hanging plant and a succulent!
Like other succulents, donkey’s tail thrives under direct sunlight and infrequent watering, only once per month-ish.
The little leaves of a donkey’s tail plant are super cute, with a puffy teardrop shape and a beautiful blue-green color.
If you take good care of your donkey’s tail plant for a few years, its clusters of leaves will grow super long, creating a super cool hanging plant aesthetic.
9. ZZ PLANT
If some of these care instructions sound a little too intimidating for you, bring it back to basics with a ZZ plant – perfect for a minimalist dorm room.
Their glossy, oval-shaped green leaves are beautiful, vibrant, and most importantly, super difficult to kill.
ZZ plants are famously low-maintenance, requiring only bright indirect sunlight and infrequent watering, about once every two weeks.
If you’ve never taken care of a plant before, but succulents aren’t quite your style, try a ZZ plant.
10. BASIL
If you’re looking for an indoor plant that’s both beautiful AND useful, look no further than the basil plant!
Sweet basil is probably the most common and popular kind of basil plant. This is the kind of basil most commonly used in pesto and other Italian dishes, making it the perfect indoor plant for someone who loves to cook.
Basil plants love lots of direct sunlight and moist soil, so be sure to remember to water your basil plant often.
If you have access to a dorm kitchen and are cooking up some pasta, just pluck a few basil leaves off your plant, give them a quick wash, and serve them on top as a garnish!
11. PHILODENDRON
Philodendron is a gorgeous tropical plant that’s another great option for beginning plant owners.
Philodendron comes in a wide range of subvarieties, including our personal favorite, the pink princess philodendron, named for its verdant green leaves with Barbie-pink patches – perfect for a boho dorm room or a girly vibe.
Philodendrons need moderate sunlight and moderate moisture. A good rule of thumb for knowing when to water your philodendron is to check and see if the top inch of soil has dried out. If it’s dry, give your plant some water!
12. FAUX PLANTS
Finally, if all these watering, fertilizing, and sunlight instructions are making your head spin, but you still love the cottagecore, greenhouse aesthetic of indoor plants, give faux plants a try!
Decorating your dorm room with faux ivy and potted plants is the perfect solution for anyone with an incurable black thumb.
Plus, nowadays, they make faux plants that are so realistic, you might even be able to fool your friends into thinking you’re a pro gardener!
Recreate it!
Indoor plants are one of the best ways to spruce up your dorm room and transform it from bland and basic to a cozy sanctuary. If you’ve never taken care of a plant before and aren’t sure where to start, don’t worry! Each of these options is a great plant for your dorm room, easy to take care of with a huge payoff! You’ll feel like a gardener in no time!
