What makes a Good Office Plant

Docter Interior Plantscaping shares basics of good office plant selection.

First, an office plant is an interior live plant.  An interior plant is simply a plant that has been adapted to living in low light, usually where it can thrive with less water and lower maintenance needs than it’s natural exterior climate.  The majority of these types of plants are native to a climate where a great deal of natural sunlight has been blocked out by other landscape obstructions such as lower areas of forest or jungle settings where they typically thrive in the shade with a very thick canopy above them.  These are places where the climate is warm or mild and the kind of temperatures that most of us prefer in our offices.  These types of plants do not require a great deal of sunlight, grow slowly, have broad, green leaves.  They can survive in low light conditions such as offices with windows, which provide limited light as far as the plant world is concerned.

Secondly, plants have a very different idea about how much light is available indoors than we do.  People look at our spaces with a lot of windows and assume that a huge amount of light is getting through.  Not so with live plants. if you think about wearing sunglasses outdoors, what is the first thing you do when you enter a building?  You take them off. Why?  Because there is a lot less bright light indoors.  Live plants experience the same thing and want an area with a lot of light.  If your office does not have enough light to urge you to think about wearing sunglasses, you need to think about choosing very low light plants as your interior plant solution.

Additionally, when you consider selecting office plants, you need to think about the growth rate.  For the most part, people want a plant that will not grow very fast so that there will not be a lot of extra maintenance such as pruning or trimming to keep the plant at the size that you are intending for your space.  You will not want the plant to grow to intrude into other cubical areas, drag along the floor, infringe into walkways, or become a nuisance in general.

In most cases, low light plants that require low maintenance, making for good office plants, also require relatively low levels of watering.  A consistent pattern of irrigation is critical for keeping live plants at their perfect moisture condition.  Most plants prefer a thorough watering with the soil surface getting slightly dry before the next watering.  In general, under watering is better than over watering since roots need air as well as water to keep plants in premium growing condition.

Finally, you will want to take a plant’s overall appearance into account.  You want plants that are easy to take care of but you also want your office plants to perform their job by enhancing your office space, not distract or detract from it.

Docter’s Interior Plantscaping provides the perfect solution for all of your guess work in selection and maintenance care of live office plants.  Be sure to check back in the future for additional information in our upcoming series of Good Office Plant Selections.  Experience Live Plants.