Best Bathroom Plants: Growing Plants Near Showers And Tubs

Wooden Walled Bathroom Full Of Potted Green Plants

bath plants

(Image credit: dit26978)

last updated 24 February 2022

It’s always nice to have houseplants. They brighten your home and purify your air. Sometimes they even make good company. But not all houseplants are the same, and neither are all the rooms in your house. Keep reading to learn more about growing plants in the bathroom and selecting the best plants for showers and tubs.

Keeping Plants Near Showers and Tubs

Putting plants in your bathroom is not only possible, but is also an excellent way to dress up this space. Bathrooms are often the perfect environment for tropical houseplants. There’s one obvious thing that sets the bathroom apart from all the other rooms in your house: moisture.

With the shower and sink running several times per day, the humidity in bathrooms is high. If you tried to grow a cactus next to your bathtub, you’d probably be disappointed. Luckily, there are lots of houseplants that thrive in moist conditions. Lack of humidity is actually a problem for a lot of houseplants – one that can be more than solved by growing them in the bathroom.

Another less sure but very common factor is light. Many bathrooms have small or even nonexistent windows. If your bathroom is one of these, you’ll want to select plants that can thrive in low light as well as high humidity. Also, make sure that your bathroom fixtures use fluorescent light bulbs, as these produce the wavelengths of light that plants need from the sun.

Location is something to consider as well. Because bathrooms tend to be small, placing plants on the floor is often not an option. Most bathroom plants will do well on a shelf or hanging from the ceiling. If your bathroom has a window, then setting a plant on the windowsill is doable.

Best Plants for the Bathroom

Here are some very popular bathroom houseplants:

Check Out Our Complete Guide to Houseplants

These plants should be able to tolerate the low light and high humidity of your bathroom. Plants for the bathroom can be set on the sink, placed in an out of the way corner, or even mounted on the wall above the shower or tub. They’ll brighten up an otherwise dark part of your house, and you’ll never forget to water them.

The only child of a horticulturist and an English teacher, Liz Baessler was destined to become a gardening editor. She has been with Gardening Know how since 2015, and a Senior Editor since 2020. She holds a BA in English from Brandeis University and an MA in English from the University of Geneva, Switzerland. After years of gardening in containers and community garden plots, she finally has a backyard of her own, which she is systematically filling with vegetables and flowers.