The Best Indoor Plants You'll Ever Grow To Spruce Up Your Home

We want plants, we love plants – but which plants will love us back? Here are the top 15 plants that will live happily in your home with the minimal amount of care. Some new wave, some old school, but all worth the effort.

Fruit Salad Monstera

Let’s start with the big guy of indoor plants, the big leafed Monstera. The easiest and least demanding of house plants that will give you the biggest bang for your buck. If you enjoy watching a slow reveal, buy a baby one, and watch as the leaves unfurl, eventually growing as big as 30cm. Bright light is good, but not vital. Water when dry – how easy is that?

Boston Fern

A long loved and robust fern that is coming back into vogue. Either in a stand, or hanging in a basket the ‘sword’ fern does require good watering (so hanging one high might be a pain in the neck), and thrives with a dose of liquid fertiliser, and the occasional spritz of water. They love light, but don’t let them get sunburnt. A super happy one can grow over a metre wide.

Black Velvet

For absolute drama folks are looking to the black velvet plant – which looks especially stunning in a grey pot. It’s all about the leaves, so position in indirect light – but don’t miss out on a spotlight at night. New leaves start out green, and turn ‘black’ as they slowly mature, in direct contrast to white veins. A showpiece plant that can be a bit moody.

Mother-in-Law’s Tongue

Here is a vintage look that is coming back to us. The architectural shape of the stiff and fleshy variegated leaves offer a real statement to any décor. Plus, they are as tough as old boots and can be positioned in any indoor light situation and while they might occasionally sprout a small white flower or two, the metre long leaves are the star attraction.

Rubber tree

For a true mid-century look, you can’t go past a rubber tree, once the décor partner of starburst wall clocks and Parker lounge sets. Position it near a sunny window, and let it dry out between waterings. Pruning will lead to a bushier plant – and off cuts often survive as new plants relatively easily.

Devil’s Ivy

For some reason these plants are always highly priced, when in fact they grow easily from cuttings. Go figure. However, these plants are vines that are born to run, and with little help will do just that, showing off shiny, heart shaped leaves on fleshy stems. The brighter the position, the more verdant the growth – but they can take a little shade. Prune for a bushy response, or even train up a wall trellis.

Peace Lily

With all this leafy talk, it’s nice to look at the virginal white petals of the verdant Peace Lily.

These guys will live for years, despite casual care. No fan of direct sun, but happy to be in a bright spot, they let you know if they’re very thirsty by wilting at the speed of light. Can live for years, and enjoy being repotted – and may be split into two plants (or more) if you’re brave.

Jade Plant

Those chubby little succulent leaves are just the ticket for a hardy indoor plant. They do grow relatively fast, especially when happy. The weak spot is root rot – so do not show your love by overwatering. They are sun loving, and the more the better, and fit happily into a small container – they look 100 per cent better in a contemporary pot with white gravel as mulch. Fun fact: broken off leaves will grow a whole new plant if laid in moist soil.

Blue Star Fern

Fabulous muted blue/green fronds in irregular shapes makes this new indoor plant a very cool customer. It’s a goody for the bathroom as it tolerates lowish light and looks divine against white tile. Interestingly it’s an epiphyte and naturally grows on trees in the forest, so a standard potting mix won’t cut it. If you’re repotting, try an orchid mix.

Fiddle Leaf Fig

Is it possible to be sick of a plant? This one has been the poster child for contemporary design for a decade – it’s a good-looking plant when treated well. So many were bought for instant effect and then abandoned like a cold chai latte, they have a bad rep. When thriving you can’t beat their deep green, big, glossy leaves. Fiddles play well with others – so if you can afford it, get a few together so they ‘self humidify’ . Position in lots of bright light, but out of drafts.

Maiden Hair Fern

If a plant could be described as a babbling brook, this would be it. Masses of dainty leaflets, cute curly fronds, dense foliage – ideal. Kept away from drafts, out of direct sun, but well humidified (a spritz a day keeps the brown leaves away), they can grow to be, frankly, enormous. And like any true beauty, they look good dressed in any sort of pot. Good news is, if you think you killed it – just cut it back to the ground and put it in the shade – voila! It will come back.

Cyclamen

Of all the indoor plants that give a huge performance, you really can’t top the Cyclamen when she’s in bud and bloom. Surrounded by pretty variegated leaves, the sturdy spires pop up in Autumn and winter with masses of flowers. They don’t like being in a hot room, and prefer being watered by drawing water from a shallow tray. They don’t last forever, but they give it heaps while they’re here.

Basil

Yes, the fragrant and tasty basil can thrive on a sunny window sill, and you get to show off by snipping the odd leaf and adding it to your focaccia – or if things are going really well, your own pesto. It grows like mad, and needs to be kept moist but after that, she’ll just keep on giving.

Moss

Odd, sure, but moss is a green miracle and quite mesmeric. You can find moss (or similar) at aquarium shops, then add gravel and stones and soil in a terrarium sort of container – but the lid does not have to be perfect, and huzzah! Your own Zen world. Once it gets going, it really is a matter of spraying with water and offering it a couple of hours of morning light. Very cool.

Orchids

So many to choose from! Dramatic, exquisite, statuesque – orchids are truly stunning if you are up for the challenge. Yes, this is supposed to be about really easy plants, but SOME people think an established orchid is just that. Again, light but not sun, proper orchid fertiliser, don’t spritz the blooms, but do take the time to learn all about them It’s worth it.

Which is the most beautiful indoor plant?

This will depend on what you value but for their beautiful flowers and trailing habit, it’s hard to go past the orchid family. Whether it’s the robust cymbidium varieties, the delicate moth or the stunning Sydney rock orchid, these stunning plants make a gorgeous display – and last a whole lot longer than cut flowers.

Which indoor plant purifies the air the most?

Since NASA published a study in 1989 on the effectiveness of indoor plants as air purifiers, there’s been discussion about which plants work best. Sadly, their ability to remove toxins has been overstated, but there are still plants that will benefit to your indoor air quality such the hardy Peace Lily, the Spider Plant, Mother-in-law’s Tongue and Devil’s Ivy.

Which indoor plant is the best for home?

This will depend on many factors, including how much time you spend at home, whether you have pets and how experienced you are at gardening but tough species such as Devil’s Ivy, Peace Lily, Rubber Plant and Monstera is a good place to start.

What is the easiest house plant to maintain?

All plants require some maintenance but more die from over watering than they do from too little care. Go for Peace Lilies, Spider Plants, Jade Plants and cacti for easy care, low maintenance plants.

The marketplace has spoken and, at least for now, it’s showing preference for hybrids and plug-in hybrids (PHEVs) over battery electrics. That makes Toyota’s foot dragging on EVs (and full speed ahead on hybrids) look fairly wise, though the timeline along a bumpy road still gets us to full electrification by 2035.

Italian supercar producer Lamborghini, in business since 1963, is also proceeding, incrementally, toward battery power. In an interview, Federico Foschini , Lamborghini’s chief global marketing and sales officer, talked about the new Urus SE plug-in hybrid the company showed at its lounge in New York on Monday.

The Urus SE interior gets a larger centre screen and other updates.
Lamborghini

The Urus SE SUV will sell for US$258,000 in the U.S. (the company’s biggest market) when it goes on sale internationally in the first quarter of 2025, Foschini says.

“We’re using the contribution from the electric motor and battery to not only lower emissions but also to boost performance,” he says. “Next year, all three of our models [the others are the Revuelto, a PHEV from launch, and the continuation of the Huracán] will be available as PHEVs.”

The Euro-spec Urus SE will have a stated 37 miles of electric-only range, thanks to a 192-horsepower electric motor and a 25.9-kilowatt-hour battery, but that distance will probably be less in stricter U.S. federal testing. In electric mode, the SE can reach 81 miles per hour. With the 4-litre 620-horsepower twin-turbo V8 engine engaged, the picture is quite different. With 789 horsepower and 701 pound-feet of torque on tap, the SE—as big as it is—can reach 62 mph in 3.4 seconds and attain 193 mph. It’s marginally faster than the Urus S, but also slightly under the cutting-edge Urus Performante model. Lamborghini says the SE reduces emissions by 80% compared to a standard Urus.

Lamborghini’s Urus plans are a little complicated. The company’s order books are full through 2025, but after that it plans to ditch the S and Performante models and produce only the SE. That’s only for a year, however, because the all-electric Urus should arrive by 2029.

Lamborghini’s Federico Foschini with the Urus SE in New York.
Lamborghini

Thanks to the electric motor, the Urus SE offers all-wheel drive. The motor is situated inside the eight-speed automatic transmission, and it acts as a booster for the V8 but it can also drive the wheels on its own. The electric torque-vectoring system distributes power to the wheels that need it for improved cornering. The Urus SE has six driving modes, with variations that give a total of 11 performance options. There are carbon ceramic brakes front and rear.

To distinguish it, the Urus SE gets a new “floating” hood design and a new grille, headlights with matrix LED technology and a new lighting signature, and a redesigned bumper. There are more than 100 bodywork styling options, and 47 interior color combinations, with four embroidery types. The rear liftgate has also been restyled, with lights that connect the tail light clusters. The rear diffuser was redesigned to give 35% more downforce (compared to the Urus S) and keep the car on the road.

The Urus represents about 60% of U.S. Lamborghini sales, Foschini says, and in the early years 80% of buyers were new to the brand. Now it’s down to 70%because, as Foschini says, some happy Urus owners have upgraded to the Performante model. Lamborghini sold 3,000 cars last year in the U.S., where it has 44 dealers. Global sales were 10,112, the first time the marque went into five figures.

The average Urus buyer is 45 years old, though it’s 10 years younger in China and 10 years older in Japan. Only 10% are women, though that percentage is increasing.

“The customer base is widening, thanks to the broad appeal of the Urus—it’s a very usable car,” Foschini says. “The new buyers are successful in business, appreciate the technology, the performance, the unconventional design, and the fun-to-drive nature of the Urus.”

Maserati has two SUVs in its lineup, the Levante and the smaller Grecale. But Foschini says Lamborghini has no such plans. “A smaller SUV is not consistent with the positioning of our brand,” he says. “It’s not what we need in our portfolio now.”

It’s unclear exactly when Lamborghini will become an all-battery-electric brand. Foschini says that the Italian automaker is working with Volkswagen Group partner Porsche on e-fuel, synthetic and renewably made gasoline that could presumably extend the brand’s internal-combustion identity. But now, e-fuel is very expensive to make as it relies on wind power and captured carbon dioxide.

During Monterey Car Week in 2023, Lamborghini showed the Lanzador , a 2+2 electric concept car with high ground clearance that is headed for production. “This is the right electric vehicle for us,” Foschini says. “And the production version will look better than the concept.” The Lanzador, Lamborghini’s fourth model, should arrive in 2028.

The Best Indoor Plants You’ll Ever Grow To Spruce Up Your Home

From the fabulous frilly to desktop companions, these easy care plants will bring your interiors to life