Caring for Your Plants in Unnatural Environments?

spoier asks: "Like many other hi-tech workers, I spend most of my days in a mostly dark cube, with only the tiniest sliver of daylight visible off in the distance over the rat maze. I would really like to have some plants around me to make this environment a little more habitable, does anyone know of plants that will thrive under these very low-light conditions?"

Comments

'lucky' bamboo

[Frumious]

Lucky bamboo (a few 8-10 inch cuts of bamboo bound together with a silver or gold twist-tie) needs very little light. You can find it at places such as IKEA, along with a vase and some glass stones or real stones to put it in, or you can often find 'prebuilt' sprigs of bamboo in a vase being sold from a cart at your local mall.

See this faq for more details (and you can order online, too). I just googled for this at random.

Mushrooms ....

[RabidMonkey]

and other fungi. They grow especially well in large corporate envrionments - they're normally laden with bullshit ...

Cacti

[Bistronaut]

I have a cactus in my office that never gets natural light (I keep my window shaded to prevent glare on my monitor). In fact, I don't water it either. I don't know how, but it still looks as healthy as the day I bought it (almost). I googled and found this site about caring for cacti.

For easy care and satisfaction...

[Dancing Tree]

...I recommend spider plants. You just stick them in some water and they grow just fine, they don't even need soil. You can buy one potted for pretty cheap at any home center (you can probably get one for around $1.99). When it forms runners, you can cut them off and place the leaf clusters in water and they *will thrive*! You can also try to find a friend who already has a spider plant and get clippings from them. Once the cluster has developed a root system, you can then pot it in soil or leave it in water, either way! I've had one spider plant for 15 years. I don't know how many years my mother had it before that. I've rooted many plants off of it too. You can let potted spider plants dry out even. They'll start to look like they need some water but will survive this way for a l-o-n-g time. Just give them some water and they bounce right back! If you water them regularly, they get downright jungle on you. They can do well in everything from direct sunlight to very little light at all. This will affect how deep a green they are (along with water) and will also determine whether or not they form yellow colored veins. These are truly hardy plants. The only way I know of to kill them is to let one (not in soil) dry out for a few weeks, or, let one (in soil) dry out for over a month. I've never fertilized one, ever, just watered. Sometimes I put the dead leaf clippings back into the pot. If you want, you can put them under a grow light. If they get enough light, they will produce runners with very small white flowers (they don't really have any odor that you would notice). These are really great plants and they produce some great oxygen! So grab a spider and get growing!