How to identify light

We're here to help you pick out the perfect plant! To start, you'll need to figure out what type of light your space has (direct or indirect, and how bright your indirect light is). Here's a helpful drawing by Leon & George to decipher your light levels:

Once you identify how bright or direct your light is, you'll be better able to determine what plants will thrive in your space. With plant care, the goal is to mimic your plants natural environment. To do that, you need to know what types of environments your space has! As a general rule of thumb, succulents, cacti and other desert plants require full, direct sun as they grow naturally in more arid, sunny regions. Leafy, tropical plants prefer jungle-like environments, but within a jungle there are different layers with different conditions:

- Plants (trees) growing in the canopy and above (emergent layer) receive direct sun (can tolerate almost drying out completely)

- Plants that reside in the understory only receive dappled sunshine, but mostly indirect (bright!) light (can tolerate about 1/2 to 2/3 of soil drying out)

- Plants living closer to the forest floor in shadier, wetter areas that prefer medium to lower light (and want to be kept slightly damp at all times, or just for the surface of soil to dry in between waterings)

All of the tropical plants we sell can be separated into these layers of the jungle, and will thrive if given the right type of care for each respective layer.

Here is a list of common plants we sell, and which layer they belong to:

Canopy and above

Any "tree" : Ficus varieties, dracaenas,
Palms
Schefflera
Bird of Paradise

Understory

Sansevieria
ZZ Plant
Monstera
Raphidophera
Pothos*
Philodendron*
Aglaonema
Dieffenbachia
Bromeliad*
Pilea
Peperomia
Tradescantia
Callisia
Syngonium / Nephthytis
Hypoestes
Croton

Forest floor

Ferns
Calatheas
Marantas
Pothos*
Philodendron*
Bromeliad*

*examples of plants that can survive in multiple layers of the jungle (often bc they vine)

With that said... there are a decent number of tropical plants that will thrive in bright, indirect light, but will survive (and grow much slower) in lower light. The lower the light, the slower a plant dries, and the less frequent you should water it (overwatering = rot). Another thing to note is that plants are cultivated in very bright light, and might take time to adjust to lower light conditions (yellowing/browning leaves, leaves dropping).

Pothos
Dracaena
Aglaonema
Dieffenbachia
ZZ plant