Want to add some greenery to your home or office, but don't want to wait forever for them to grow to size? We have curated a list of the fastest growing houseplants available to give you a head start on shooing a great plant (or three) to liven up your living space!
1. Spider Plants
Spider plants are easily among the easiest of house plants to grow and maintain beautifully. Air-purifying spider plants need only be watered when their soil becomes dry – about once a week. Light isn’t something that most people have to worry about because spider plants only need a moderate amount of daylight to thrive. Avoid putting your spider plants in direct, day-long sunlight, as doing so can result in scorching of the leaves.
These plants are a great addition for any space because they are low maintenance and healthy to have around. They absorb carbon dioxide, formaldehyde, and xylene from the air, making it easier to breathe freely in the comfort of your home or office.
Where to Buy Spider Plants
JM Bamboo sells this 3-pack of spider plants, which are surprisingly large for the price. One spider plant looks great, but you can create quite an impressive aesthetic with even more.
American Plant Exchange also offers a single, expertly packaged spider plant to bring into your home. A single spider plant is a great way to get acquainted with indoor gardening and spruce up a space.
2. Aloe Vera
Aloe Vera, the green, gel-like stuff that you see on shelves near the sunscreen and sunblock, can be grown right at home to be used any time! This low-maintenance plant is easy and fast to grow at home, with minimal watering under indirect or artificial light. With proper care, this plant will grow offspring that will eventually form their own plants!
Aloe Vera can be used to soothe burned skin, aid in digestion and moisturize hair. And, like most indoor plants, this one will help purify the air around you.
Where to Buy Aloe Vera
If you’re looking for a more decorative aloe plant, this live plant sold by American Plant Exchange is a great option. It can still be used safely on skin, but this plant’s claim to fame is the bright, fiery flowers that emerge once a year.
Costa Farms offers this beautiful potted aloe plant, which is perfect both for indoor and outdoor spaces.
3. Jade Plant
Jade plants are easy to grow and do grow quite large, so they’re an excellent addition to any space that needs an impressive touch of natural flair. These plants, which look like miniature trees, require a great deal of sunlight to thrive in your home, office or anywhere else. When properly nurtured, you can cut off a branch and allow it to grow into its own jade plant.
Where to Buy Jade Plants
This jade plant sold by Hirt’s Gardens boasts beautiful sunset colors at the edges of its leaves when mature and cared for properly. The 4-inch pot it’s sold in is perfect for a young jade plant, but you might want to transplant it to a larger container as it grows bigger. Jade plants are quite top-heavy.
4. Ti Leaf
Unlike some other options on this list, ti leaf plants boast incredibly bright hues of white, purple and pink. For any well-lit space, these plants are an eye-catching addition that you should consider. They grow quite large when the owner cares for them – which is easy to do – and make a statement in any area of a space.
This tropical plant is also known as “the good luck plant.” It requires relatively high humidity and minimal pruning to ensure beautiful growth into full maturity.
Where to Buy Ti Leaf Plants
This ti leaf plant is sold in a 3-gallon pot, the perfect size for a young plant to flourish. The lush, colorful foliage can grow anywhere between 2 and 4 feet in height.
5. Ficus Tree
Thriving in bright, indirect sunlight, the ficus tree plant is incredibly easy to grow indoors – even if you’ve never flexed your green thumb before. This plant can grow quite tall with minimal effort on the part of the owner, as long as its environment is slightly humid and sunny. If low humidity in your home is a potential problem, you can solve it through the addition of a small humidifier or surrounding your ficus tree with other plants.
Where to Buy Ficus Trees
This tree, sold by Costa Farms, arrives at its destination standing around an impressive 4 feet in height. The addition of plants like this in a space can improve not only your mood, but also the quality of the air around you.
The Benjamin ficus tree sold by Brighter Blooms has a uniquely cultivated stem that adds an unexpected element to your home or office.
6. Bamboo
Bamboo is an incredibly versatile plant that can be successfully grown indoors and outdoors. It is known to be lucky to have around regardless of where you place it, as bamboo invokes feelings of calm and tranquility.
This beautiful plant accents any indoor garden and helps to purify the air in your space. Bamboo lives for many years, making it a perfect ornamental plant for anywhere at all.
Where to Buy Bamboo
The decorative bamboo plant sold by NW Wholesaler comes in a stunning ceramic planter that is sure to add a beautiful touch to any area of your space. This type of bamboo, known as lucky bamboo, is known to symbolize wealth and prosperity.
Betterdecor sells a 10-pack of 12-inch bamboo stalks, which allows you to use the plant in any way that you can think of!
7. Hibiscus
The beautiful blossoms of a hibiscus plant easily and quickly add a pop of color into an area, either indoors or outdoors. There are many types of hibiscus that only thrive in tropical environments naturally, but this can easily be recreated inside the home. You can choose to grow hibiscus trees and shrubs, even inside your home.
Where to Buy Hibiscus Plants
Sold by Proven Winners, this hibiscus shrub starts small but rapidly grows to a hearty 8-12 feet tall and 6 feet wide. This is a great option for someone who wants a lot of hibiscus coloring their space or those who want to eventually transplant outdoors.
For something a bit more scaled back, American Plant Exchange sells a 3-gallon planter that houses robust peach-colored hibiscus blooms.
8. Cacti
Succulents and cacti are very easy to grow and maintain and, like other plants, they assist in the purification of indoor air. With minimal watering, moderate sunlight and a stable temperature in its environment, any indoor cacti will grow and live for many years. Cacti is a great option for kids and first-time growers because of their ease of maintenance.
Where to Buy Cacti
The people at Altman Plants understand that cacti is an incredibly varied plant option, so they’ve come out with this beautiful variety pack of 4 small, living cacti plants.
9. Fern
Ferns are incredibly low-maintenance and provide a beautifully refreshing touch of green to any room or indoor garden. They are incredibly adaptable and hardy, as fern plants grow quite successfully in nearly any type of soil. Occasional pruning and the addition of mulch are recommended to help promote healthy, beautiful growth of your fern plants.
Where to Buy Fern Plants
This foxtail fern sold by American Plant Exchange is brighter and stands more upright than many other variations of fern. It looks great on its own or as an accent in an indoor garden.
The white rabbit’s foot fern sold by JM Bamboo is unique in the way that it grows small, white fluffs around the exterior of the pot. This lends itself to the plant’s name: rabbit’s foot fern.
10. Peace Lily
Peace lilies are very well known for removing toxins like formaldehyde, benzene and carbon dioxide from the air. They look beautiful in any setting and provide humidity in areas where your home or office may need it the most. Peace lilies thrive on little light, which makes them a great low-maintenance plant.
Allergy sufferers beware: these lilies do give off pollen and a distinct floral fragrance. And one more warning for cat owners - lilies are extremely toxic for kitties, so keep them out of your home and garden too.
Where to Buy Peace Lilies
If variety is what you’re after, check out this 4-pack sold by Costa Farms. You’ll get not only a peace lily, but three other air-purifying, easily maintained household plants in this kit.
JM Bamboo also sells potted peace lilies. This one is housed in a stunning red planter.
11. Philodendrons
Philodendrons (philo=love and dendron=tree) are easy to care for and grow to be quite tall, as well as wide. As they help purify the air in your space, philodendrons rapidly expand to around 3 feet in height and potentially 6 feet in width.
These plants should only be watered when their soil is dry on top. They require bright, indirect sunlight to thrive. This makes them very easy to grow and maintain. When exposed to too much sun, philodendron leaves will appear yellowish and may need to be pruned away.
Where to Buy Philodendrons
This split leaf philodendron sold by Costa Farms grows between 2 and 3 feet in height and is shipped in a beautiful, white planter that suits any home or office décor.
12. Snake Plant
Snake plants are one of the best houseplants in terms of air purification. This is because they have the capacity to absorb higher-than-usual levels of carbon monoxide. These plants are exceptional at removing other known toxins from the air with great efficiency. Also known as the mother-in-law’s tongue plant, snake plants require little light and only once-weekly watering.
Where to Buy Snake Plants
Burpee sells a black coral snake plant that has darker pigmentation of other snake plant varieties.
If a brighter snake plant is what you’re after, 9GreenBox offers this variety of the snake plant. It is sold in a 4-inch pot but will typically grow beyond what this size planter can handle.
Do you want to put these plants on window boxes? Know them first!
13. Miniature Roses
Roses are beautiful flowers but growing them outside in their full-sized varieties can be too taxing for some. Miniature roses, on the other hand, afford those with a green thumb the chance to utilize the beauty of roses easily in their own homes and offices. These roses, like larger roses, need higher humidity and a lot of direct sunlight in comparison to other house plants.
Most often, miniature roses end up transplanted outside to thrive to their fullest potential.
Where to Buy Miniature Roses
These miniature roses showcase the vibrancy and beauty of this type of houseplant. Seller AchmadAnam ships these flowers in 4-inch pots during the winter, when dormant.
14. Dieffenbachia
Diffenbachia plants provide lush, beautiful foliage that effectively saps toxins out of the air. The plant and its oval-shaped leaves practically thrive on neglect, so you don’t have to worry about having a high-maintenance plant on your hands. Considering how little effort has to go into their cultivation, it might surprise you to learn that diffenbachia plants can grow to an impressive five feet in height.
Diffenbachia is also commonly called “dumb cane,” due to the fact that it contains a component that can briefly numb the vocal cords if ingested.
Where to Buy Diffenbachia Plants
Bellacia Gardens sells a diffenbachia plant with bare roots. This makes for an easier planting experience. Simply plant the diffenbachia into your planter of choice!
The diffenbachia sold here has a fun “splash” coloring on its large leaves.
15. Geraniums
Geraniums can thrive year-long inside, as long as they are exposed to bright light and the owner allows for a small drying period for the soil between watering sessions. If you’re growing geraniums indoors, it’s best that you place them on a windowsill or similarly sunlit area. When it’s time to water, check for moisture/dryness 4-6 inches into the soil.
Geraniums are a beautiful punch of color for any garden – outdoors or inside.
Where to Buy Geraniums
Plants by Post sells these stunning potted geraniums. Their stems range between 10 and 12 inches in length and the blossoms will continue to grow for as long as you nurture your plant.
Not sure where to put all of these gorgeous fast-growing houseplants? Check out our guide for creating a vertical indoor garden for some ideas! Also, read about these house plants that don't need drainage!