5 Beginner-Friendly Plants That Will Thrive At Our UTA Student Housing

If you’ve never taken care of a plant before (or you’ve taken care of one, but unsuccessfully), it can be intimidating to bring a plant home to your student apartments. Arlington is a hospitable home for many types of houseplants, but keeping a plant alive in an apartment can feel like a challenge if you’re putting the wrong plants in the wrong places. These five houseplants are excellent choices for medium to low light environments, and many of them can stand not being watered frequently, which is good news for less-than-perfect gardeners, including busy students. 

Do you know a friend or neighbor in our community of UTA student housing who is looking for apartment plants but not sure where to start? Send this post to them once you’re done the reading! For now, let’s get into our top apartment plant recommendations.

Spider Plant

Spider plants bear lots of skinny, ribbon-like leaves that will make your apartment feel like a place of abundance, even when these plants aren’t getting a lot of light. Its arcing green leaves look great in a hanging planter or on the tabletop, and its roots can handle being a little crowded, so you don’t need a huge pot to accommodate them. Spider plants do need to be watered a little more often than some other plants on this list, though—around once a week for best results. It’s not the end of the world if you’re a little late with a watering, though; this plant will tolerate a belated watering every so often.

Snake Plant

A snake plant sprouts several stiff, ribbon-like leaves that grow upward with a variegated pattern akin to reptilian scales, which is how the plant gets its name. This hardy indoor plant can survive in any light, including low light, and does not need frequent watering, nor does it require pruning. Bear in mind that very low light conditions may reduce the colorful variegation on its leaves; nevertheless, this plant provides a vibrant addition to any room.

ZZ Plant

If you’d prefer a fern-like plant, the ZZ plant is a perfect choice. Yielding waxy green leaves across a number of stalks, the ZZ plant also tolerates low light and infrequent watering. It’s a resilient little plant that can spring back to life even after some neglect. Don’t worry if it drops some leaves while you’ve been a less-than-perfect gardener. Just water it as normal and it should be revitalized before too long.

Pothos

Pothos plants are another popular low light option for apartments. In fact, pothos plants don’t do well in direct sunlight, so they’re well-suited to an indoor environment. Their trailing, ivy-like vines bear spade-shaped leaves that can be variegated with white or silver, depending on the variety (though plants variegated in this way usually need a bit more sunlight than their all-green counterparts). They won’t naturally cling to walls or trellises like ivy, but their vines can grow very long if left unpruned.

Succulents

Finally, the obvious choice: succulents. Succulents have become very popular lately due to their need for infrequent watering and ability to thrive in minimal space. They come in a variety of colors and shapes, but all of them do best in partial to bright light (typically, the more light, the better), so make sure they’ve got a spot by the window, or can spend most of the day under bright artificial light if natural light is unavailable.

We hope we’ve given you the guidance and inspiration to bring a plant home to our apartments! UTA students, if you liked this post and you’d like to keep up to date on future posts, be sure to bookmark our blog page! We’ll have another post in a couple weeks, but in the meantime, go ahead and follow us on Instagram for all our special promotions, community updates, and events!