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When you decide to grow indoor plants, a very important thing is a pot choice. Indoor plant drainage is important, so we choose the pot by its look, color, and shape. The most beautiful pots that you would gladly buy are usually pots without drainage holes. Therefore, today we will talk about 20 indoor plants that don’t need drainage holes.
So, what are the most popular plants to grow in pots without drainage? Check out the list of 20 indoor plants that don’t require drainage.
Best 20 Houseplants to Grow without Drainage
1. Pineapple Plant
This tropical fruit can be easily grown in your home in a pot without a drainage hole. So, what kind of pots without drain plants of this type like?
To successfully grow the pineapple plant in domestic conditions, you just need to follow the next steps.
After buying a pineapple plant, cut the top of it.
Try to split the leaves on the pineapple’s crown one by one, and dry the crown out for about ten days. When the crown is dried, stab 4 toothpicks in it. Put the stabbed crown in the jar filled with water to get some roots.
After a few weeks, the root will appear, and you can plant it in your favorite pot without indoor drainage holes. Place it on your coffee table, and let it grow.
2. Monstera Deliciosa
Monstera Deliciosa, or Adam’s rib, is the most common indoor plant that you will see in many homes.
It has got big leaves in the shape of ribs, and it is the plant for the whole life because it is really easy to take care of, and it can survive for many years. Deliciosa doesn’t need a lot of water, so it can stay and live happily ever after in a flower pot without drainage. It just has to be in a lighter part of your apartment.
3. Schefflera
Schefflera comes from a family where there are more than 900 members.
Schefflera can grow a lot, too, and you have to fertilize it once in a year to prosper its growth quickly.
Schefflera has cute leaves in the octopus or umbrella shape. That’s why the most famous Schefflera species to grow indoor are Octopus or Umbrella Schefflera.
4. Croton
Croton is one of the plants that you can grow in plant pots without drain holes and that with definitely spice up your private or business space.
It is well known for its colorful leaves that can be yellow, green, and red.
Croton can grow and multiply in the water. You just have to cut and put its leaves in the water at the high temperature, and you will see how fast it will multiply.
Croton’s beautiful autumnal leaves are truly exotic pleasures for your eyes.
5. Snake Plant
This one is the indoor plant for complete beginners.
It is extremely easy to grow and take care of. Besides its kinky look, the Snake Plant is interesting in the way it grows. If you don’t have a pot where you can plant it, it will survive in a simple jar filled with water.
The Snake Plant has long green leaves striped with yellow colors, and it looks like a snake.
6. Lucky Bamboo
Lucky Bamboo has that spiral look that can make it an interesting decoration in your home, office, coffee shops, and many public places.
It depends on the light how much it will grow. If you place your Lucky Bamboo in a light place, it will grow faster. If you leave it in a dark place, it will grow slowly.
Just pay attention to the amount of the water you add. It requires fresh water once in a while.
7. Autograph Tree
Autograph Tree or a Scotch attorney is also a tropical plant.
It looks like a small tree, and it has wide thick leaves. While it is growing, you can notice the fruits it gives. These little fruits are in the apple’s shape.
That is the perfect indoor plant because it likes high temperatures. You can keep it on the medium light.
Because of its medium size, people use it the most to decorate their offices.
8. Dwarf Palm
Phoenix roebelenii or Dwarf Palm has its origin in Asia, and you can find it all over Vietnam.
Dwarf Palm can be mostly seen in people’s gardens, but it can be an extraordinary decoration touch in your living room or large halls.
It requires bright but indirect sunlight. You can water it once a week, and it will be enough.
The interesting fact about the Dwarf Palm is that you can even grow it in a simple basket, and it will grow crazy.
The palm lovers will be thrilled with this type of palm, and it will always remind you of the seaside. Life is great!
9. Oleander
Even many people suggest avoiding the Oleander plant as an indoor plant, and it is hard to resist its beauty.
Oleanders are irresistible because of the beautiful and colorful flowers it has. Most of the indoor plants are similar and green, with unusual shapes, but Oleander is one of the indoor plants that are quite different. Its flowers are poisonous, and they can be dangerous for your children and pets.
If you want to grow an Oleander, it would be useful to know that you don’t have to worry about the soil and watering because it isn’t a demanding plant at all.
10. Aloe Vera
An Aloe Vera plant is an indoor plant with many benefits for health and beauty. You can use it for skin, hair, cuts, and burns.
Its leaves are sharp and long. They look like a crocodile tail. When you cut Aloe Vera’s leaf, the jelly comes out. You can use it immediately to heal your wound.
The great thing about this plant is that its necessities make it a perfect choice for indoor plant enthusiasts. It is just one of the many different types of indoor plants that don’t need drainage. This means that you can water it just once in a year, and it would be desirable to water it in the winter.
It is already a juicy plant, that’s why you have to wait for its soil to dry up completely.
11. Elephant Foot Plant
Beaucarnea recurvata, Elephant Foot Plant, or Ponytail Plant are just some of the names that this silly plant has.
Elephant Foot Plant is always a good idea to make your living room a great place to spend your spare time.
As its name implies, this plant brings you good luck everywhere you place it. The shape of the plant is very cute, too. It has got a thick trunk and thicker base. Its leaves are long and green. They fall slightly down like a ponytail.
This amazing indoor plant can live for many years. After its tenth birthday, the tree starts to change the leaves’ color. Leaves can become gently white. Its leaves change color in the spring.
It doesn’t need much water. As a matter of fact, it’s one of the indoor plants that don’t need drainage. Its big trunk stores water from inside and it nourishes the soil while it is completely dried up. Just sip a little bit of water and it will be just fine.
12. Cordyline
Cordyline is one of the most beautiful and colorful plants you can have in your room.
Like many indoor plants, Cordyline needs bottled water, not tap. That is really important because Cordyline has specific leaves. Its leaves are long, and they can be red or green, colored with a yellow or white note.
If you want your Cordyline to be beautiful and look healthy, follow the previous tip about watering. Its leaves can become brown, and you won’t be able to help it look healthy again.
Cordyline grows wide, so make sure that you put it in an empty place because its leaves spread a lot.
13. Christ Plant
Euphoria Milii, Christ Plant, or Christ Thorn comes from Madagascar. It is spread on the Island of Madagascar, called La Réunion. Réunion is one of a few islands that are very famous for its wild and untouchable nature. That’s the thing with the Christ Plant. It looks wild and untouchable.
It doesn’t require much water. You can water it 4 times a year (once in every season of the year).
Considering indoor plants drainage, you don’t have to worry at all because you can leave it in a pot without a drainage hole. Add the mixture of soil and sand to keep it healthy and long-lasting.
14. Kupukupu Fern
Besides its interesting and unusual name that many can’t say properly, Kupukupu Fern comes from a very exotic place. That place is Hawaii. This plant is very popular among Hawaiian people, and each family has more than one pot in its home.
The word “Kupu” means to spear, shoot up, or to sprout.
Kupukupu Fern decorates many hula altars in Hawaii, and it is a must-have plant in all schools because it symbolizes life learning, and as well, it celebrates life and education.
Its ferns are light green and are careful to keep them out of sitting in water because leaves can die of overwatering. Beautiful Kupukupu fern’s leaves are used for making Hawaiian lei or Hawaiian traditional garland.
15. Cactus
Cactus is one of the most famous outdoor and indoor plants that don’t require drainage.
If you want to buy a plant as a gift, try with cactus because that is the plant that never dies. There are many types and sizes of cactus. They are very resistant plants that can survive everything.
Cactus has tissues where they have water storage. “I forgot to water my plant” can just become one of the sentences you used to say.
If a cactus can survive everything, it can survive in a pot without holes. And not all of them can stab you, just some of the species.
16. Asparagus Sprengeri
This is one of the indoor plants that do not need drainage holes pots reminds a lot of food, or to a spice plant, to be more specific.
Many people use it as an ornamental plant or a hanging plant. It’s funny, green and it is an air cleaner, too.
17. Pothos
Pothos is an indoor plant that came from French Polynesia. Its middle name is Devil’s Ivy.
It is the perfect plant for those who always forget to take care of their plants. Its middle name is well deserved because it is almost impossible to destroy this little devil. It really likes light, but it can survive under no matter what circumstances.
It will survive even in the complete dark. In that name, Vive la France!
18. Chinese Evergreen
Chinese evergreen is a beautiful, decorative plant. It is also the beginner’s first luck. You can’t go wrong with this plant.
It is easy to care for, medium, and low light survivor, it is an air cleaner, and you can grow it in various shapes and sizes. In a smaller size, it can be a perfect table or shelf decoration. In a bigger size, it can decorate an empty place on the floor, next to the wall.
Chinese evergreen has got long, green, light green striped leaves.
There are more than a hundred of its species, so they all look like each other. It looks really nice in white, beige, and yellow pots.
19. Spider Plant
Spider Plant is a plant for beginners or for people who just have problems to keep their plants alive.
Not demanding at all, the Spider Plant needs just clean and fresh water. Instead of tap water, try to use the bottled one to make sure that your Spider Plant’s leaves stay healthy and yellow.
Its leaves are long and thin. They look like spider’s legs.
Spider Plant is the only plant from this list that has many other names in its biography. It is named as Indian Feather, mother-in-law’s tongue, George’s sword, etc.
20. The Fiddle-Leaf Fig
The fiddle-leaf fig, or Ficus Lyrata, is from the fig family plants. It originates from different parts of western Africa where it mostly grows in rainforests.
Ficus Lyrata plants have interesting shapes. Its shape is almost sculptural, and it can be easily matched in any interior design.
If you take care of it properly, it will last for years.
The fiddle-leaf fig has a very thin trunk with large leaves that can be one meter large. They remind on an instrument, lyre.
Water it whenever you notice its soil is dried. Don’t expose it to direct light, and choose the biggest post without holes you can. It doesn’t need drainage holes, but it needs space.
It will look perfect wherever you put it.
Related: Ficus Plant Care Guide – Propagating, Repotting, Common Problems, and More
Growing houseplants in pots without drainage
Planting in a flower pot with no drainage holes is a big NO-NO for many flower and plant lovers.
However, if you want to make a beautiful indoor garden by using pots without drainage holes, follow these instructions, and you will have the most beautiful indoor plants your neighbors have ever seen.
- If your house pot isn’t too heavy, always plant directly in that pot.
- If your house pots are heavy, leave a plant in its plastic pot and place it on some pebbles, send or whatever it takes to keep it safe.
- Try not to overwater your plant. Before you water it again, be sure that the soil is completely dried. This step is very important for plants that are in these pots without drainage holes.
- Add more soil each time when the soil goes down.
- Wall pockets and ceramic pots are the best options for planting w/o holes.
FAQ
Why do you need drainage holes for pots?
Pots are not just for decoration your room, balcony, office, or hall. They serve to keep your plant alive as much as possible.
Some of the plants require more water than others. Some of them can easily die, if you overwater them or if you don’t care for them properly. In that case, you need to have drainage holes on pots. Drainage holes help your plant to breathe.
Plants can inhale and exhale through these drainage holes. Breathing means that your plants mustn’t dive into the water.
Do indoor plant pots need drainage holes?
It depends on the plant species.
For some species, it is obligatory to plant them in pots that have drainage holes.
The fact that you want to save your plant from winter doesn’t mean that heat or overwatering won’t kill it. Plants are alive, and they need to breathe.
Some plants can survive the heat and dry, but others can’t. You have to provide perfect conditions for indoor gardening as well as for outdoor gardening.