How much light does my plant need?

How much light does my plant need?

All houseplants need some natural sunlight to survive, but each one likes different levels of light depending on their natural habitat - so check out your plant’s product page to see what its needs are. When picking the next addition to your plant gang, start by working out what direction the windows face using the compass on your smartphone. Because we’re in the Northern Hemisphere, South-facing will get the most light each day whereas North-facing windows get significantly less. East and West facing windows fall somewhere in the middle. Remember to turn off the lights to get a measure for how the natural light fills the room, as houseplant's can't feed off light bulbs. Then look out of the window and estimate how much of the day is in the shadow of another building, remembering that the sun will move East to West over the course of the day. If you are up higher than the buildings around you, your window will get much more light than if you are down in a basement flat in a built up street.

When you’ve got a rough measure of the natural light level you expect the plant to get, use the filters on our website to see which Patch houseplants are going to be most comfortable. The closer you put the plant to the window, the more light it will get - so you can always put shade lovers at the back of the room and sun lovers by the windows.

If your plant is drooping, growing pale leaves, or shedding leaves altogether it may need more light. Move it to a bright spot and give the leaves a wipe to get rid of any dust (and maybe clean your windows while you’re at it to let in more light).

Plants getting too much sun will have soil that is baked dry and their leaves may be crisp, bleached, or have brown spots or tips. Don’t suddenly move them too far from the window though - they may just need the sunlight to be a little less direct.