The Low-Maintenance Houseplant That Will Thrive In Your Low-Light Bathroom

If you're a houseplant enthusiast, you may find yourself wondering if it's truly possible to pick a houseplant for every room in your house, including your bathroom. While a bathroom lacking a window may not be the perfect place for plants — unless you're willing to supplement sunlight with grow lights — bathrooms with windows can be a great spot to display low-light plants, especially those that can thrive in humidity. As a result, if you're struggling to grow prayer plants (Calathea) in the rest of your home, you may want to add this low-maintenance houseplant to your bathroom.

Prayer plants are a popular houseplant pick, with eye-catching pattern leaves that can act as a statement piece in a room despite their simplicity. However, while they are low maintenance in their day-to-day care, they aren't usually considered an easy plant to grow because of their unique conditions. After all, Calathea are tropical plants originating in South America, so they do best in warm environments with ample humidity and low levels of light. It's because of these interesting growing conditions that prayer plants can thrive in your low-light bathroom.

If you want to grow prayer plants in your bathroom, be sure you can provide the right environment. You may also want to brush up on its care requirements for a healthy, thriving plant.

When thinking about ways to help prayer plants thrive as houseplants in your bathroom, consider their natural environments: warm, humid forests with dappled sunlight or low light on the forest floor. Keeping these characteristics in mind can help you recreate the growing conditions that your prayer plants thrive in. Prayer plants require temperatures over 60 degrees Fahrenheit to grow, although you won't want to store them somewhere warmer than 85 degrees. If your bathroom drops below 60 degrees, the colder temperature may damage your Calathea. You also want to avoid direct sunlight, which can damage the leaves, and instead opt for bright, indirect light when possible. If your bathroom is truly lowlight, you can still add prayer plants here, they may just not grow as fast or large. Humidity is also essential, so you may want to keep a humidifier going if your bathroom doesn't maintain the right humidity levels for this plant to thrive.

Creating the right environment for your prayer plant can be tricky, but, overall, daily care is relatively low and easy. While this may not be one of the best plants for beginner gardeners, it can be a good choice for those who have already started to develop their green thumb. You'll need to repot your prayer plant, but only once every year or so, and it only needs fertilizer during times of high plant growth, like spring and summer.

Humidity isn't the only moisture that prayer plants need, however. When considering daily maintenance, keep in mind its need for hydration. Prayer plants do best in soil that is moist but not waterlogged.