Plants for the window that gets no direct sun

Which window is the gentle one depends on which side of the equator you stand. In the northern hemisphere the sun crosses the southern half of the sky, so a north-facing window never gets direct sun. In the southern hemisphere it crosses the northern half, so the window that never gets direct sun faces south, and a north-facing window in Johannesburg or Auckland is the bright one. East and west do not change. If you have read plant advice written for the other hemisphere, swap the two words and it works again. A phone compass settles the question in ten seconds.

This is light between medium and low: steady and gentle. It is better than its reputation. A plant on the sill sees a large piece of sky, and the sky, not the sun, is what it is reading. Move the same plant back into the room and the light falls away quickly, so the sill and the first metre beside it are where this window does its work.

The mistake that kills them

There are two, and they are opposites. The first is putting a sun lover here and waiting. Most of the plants that want full sun are succulents and cacti, and in a gentle window they stretch, fade and lean until they are a sorry version of the plant in the shop. The second is moving a plant that has spent the winter here into the brightest window for the summer. A leaf grown indoors has a thin cuticle and few protective pigments, and it scorches in an afternoon. Even a jade plant burns after a winter indoors. Move plants in stages, as the guide to moving plants between seasons sets out.

Water is the quiet third. Light is what drives a plant to drink, so a plant in a gentle window uses less than the same plant in a bright one, and the compost stays wet for longer. Water by the finger and not by the calendar, and in winter, when the sun is lower and the days shorter, bring the pots close to the glass, clean both sides of the window and keep leaves off the cold pane.

How the list was chosen

An entry is listed here when it is recorded as tolerating low or medium light, when it can live indoors, and once it has been reviewed. Tolerate is the honest word. Some of these plants would prefer more light, and they do best on the sill itself, not two metres back in the room. The plants that actually prefer a dim spot are gathered on the low light shelf.

The list is sorted with the easiest first, then by name. If a plant here starts to make smaller leaves, longer gaps between them and a lean toward the glass, it is asking for more light, and moving it a metre nearer is more likely to help than anything you could buy. The guide to light, room by room says what each level looks like in a real house.