While upright plants are great, if you really want your home to look “nature-kissed,” you’ll also need hanging plants.
Thankfully, there are many beautiful plants that not only serve this purpose well, but are also so easy to care for that you can spend time admiring them rather than constantly tending to them.
We have something for everyone, so take a look and see which catches your interest.
Spider Plant – Chlorophytum comosum
Spider plants, with their long, leaf-like leaves of shades of dark green or green mixed with cream, are another popular choice for hanging in the home. Especially when you consider that the leaves produce tiny offspring that you can tear off and plant one by one for more free spider plants!
At full maturity spider plants should be about 12 to 15 inches tall with an overall length of about 3 feet and the baby spider plants we mentioned will have white blooms in the spring…keep an eye out for them, they are really pretty!
A regular pot with a soil based on sphagnum moss or orchid bark is ideal. Bright, indirect sunlight is best. Before watering, check that the top 5 cm of soil is dry. The optimal amount of watering should be about once a week.
String of Hearts – Ceropegia woodii
Heart clusters are the real highlight, and the variety we’ve selected today has green heart-shaped leaves with silvery veins. The heart necklace will hang beautifully from the hanging planter, making the heart necklace a great choice for high traffic areas of the home.
The plant’s tendrils are also easy to manage, reaching an average length of 2 to 3 feet in adulthood.
Native to Africa, this plant is very close to succulents, so a succulent soil mix is perfect. Give it bright, indirect sun, and keep it out of the way—direct light can burn the leaves. First make sure the soil is completely dry. You may find that you need to water every two weeks in the warmer months and every three to four weeks in the winter.
Epipremnum pinnatum ‘Aureum’
It’ another variety of pothos that is both hardy and attractive. It has green leaves with yellow accents and is a true wild climber. In hanging pots, however, the pretty leaves will droop and you’ll need to trim the vine from time to time – devil ivy can grow up to 40 feet long when left unchecked!
Regular potting soil with some coconut peat or common sphagnum moss is a sufficiently porous soil substrate for proper growth of devil ivy. Bright indirect sun is also best for this plant, as it tolerates low light but loses excess yellow on the green leaves.
As for water, check the top 2 inches of soil. When the soil is dry, it’s time to water. Usually this means watering him once a week, but be sure to be safe.
Forest Cactus – Lepismium bolivianum
Although it looks a bit like spider plant, forest cactus is a bit strange. It is a thornless cactus that grows many long, beautiful green silk threads that enticingly draw cute little eyes on the pots.
Once your plants have matured, you’ll get an extra color, summer rosette-like blooms, pink or white, that will magically appear and brighten your day. At full maturity, expect the tendrils to be around 90cm in length, but keep in mind that flowering takes a while – this plant takes around 8 years to reach full maturity. However, when it does, it’s like a birthday present that you definitely didn’t expect!
A cactus mix potting soil is perfect for this plant, and bright, indirect sunlight is best. Allow the top half of the soil to dry out between watering. This usually means giving him water once a week during the warmer months, and every 10 days to every two weeks in the winter.
Donkey’s tail – Sedum morganianum
Although small and cute at first, this is a room-filling plant, reaching a maximum length of about 4 feet and a maximum width of about 2 feet when fully grown.
Although small and cute at first, this is a room-filling plant that reaches a maximum length of about 4 feet and a maximum width of about 2 feet when fully grown.
Sandy soil makes your donkey’s tail happiest, so give it some cactus mix and it should be just fine. This plant needs at least 4 hours of bright, indirect light, with some plants preferring direct sunlight in the morning. However, be careful if you do this as you could get burned. Therefore, indirect light is the recommended choice.
Watering is the best thing you can do with this plant as these plants are drought tolerant. So let the soil dry out, water once a month and your donkey tail will be happy and healthy.
Morning Glory – Ipomoea purpurea
Morning glories are actually great for hanging pots because they look great and are easy to grow. The strain we’ve chosen here has beautiful green vines and purple flowers, but another popular choice is Paradise Blue.
You should prune it from time to time, but morning glory grows to a maximum length of just under 10 feet.
Morning glories aren’t very picky about soil, so regular potting soil with a sprinkle of perlite or some gravel at the bottom to help with drainage will do. Full, direct sun is best for these plants, and watering twice a week is ideal for all the direct sun they get.
