Plants for an office

An office gives a plant three things that a home does not. The first is a routine with nobody around outside it, so the plant is on its own every evening, weekend and holiday. The second is light from a window that may be a long way from the desk. The third is air that is heated or cooled by a system nobody at the desk controls, and air conditioning dries a room out as thoroughly as a heater does.

Light is the one to settle first. A desk is almost always further from the glass than a sill, and light falls away with distance far faster than it feels as though it should. A plant on a desk three metres from a window is in medium light at best, and one in an interior room with no window at all is in no light, which is not the same thing as low light. The guide to light, room by room shows how to tell what a corner really gets with your hand and a sheet of paper.

The mistake that kills them

Nobody owns the can. An office plant is watered by whoever notices it, which means by several people on several days, or by no one, and either way the compost is guessed at. The fix costs nothing: one person looks after it, on the day the log offers, and pushes a finger in to the first knuckle before pouring. The guide to telling whether a plant needs water sets out the finger test and the weight test. Choose plants whose entries give a long watering interval, because those are the ones that forgive a missed week.

Time away is the other half. A weekend needs nothing beyond a normal watering, and the guide to holiday watering sets out what to do for a week or two, from grouping the pots together to a wick. Heating is the last. Where the heating goes off at night or at the weekend in winter, the room can fall a long way, so check the minimum temperature on the entry and keep leaves off the cold glass.

How the list was chosen

An entry is listed here when it is filed under the office, and once it has been reviewed. The list is sorted with the easiest first, then by name. It runs from plants that tolerate low light to plants that want a good deal more, so read the light on each entry and compare it with the desk you actually have before you choose.

The finder can narrow the same selection by pet safety, by how thirsty a plant is and by its size. If a plant here starts to stretch toward the window, make smaller leaves or lean, it wants more light, and moving it a metre nearer the glass will do more than any feed.