9 Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom + How to Grow

It’s quite hard to grow plants in bathrooms without windows since they need light for photosynthesis. However, there are plants that need very little light and will thrive in windowless bathrooms. They can even reduce humidity and clean the air too. 

The best plants for windowless bathrooms include lucky bamboo, pothos, spider plant, Boston fern, philodendron, aloe vera, arrowhead plant, snake plant, and Chinese evergreen. Supplement sunlight with artificial light, open shower doors, a mirror outside the bathroom, and sunlight once weekly.

One way to keep your windowless bathroom plants healthy is by putting them close to a window or patio at least once every few days. This way, they can make use of the light before you take them back to the bathroom. You can even have two sets of plants one in the patio and the other in the bathroom then exchange weekly. 

9 Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

Best plants for windowless bathroom

The best plants for bathrooms with no windows include the following:

1. Lucky bamboo (Dracaena sanderiana)

Lucky Bamboo - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The lucky bamboo is a plant commonly associated with good luck and is one of the best plants for bathrooms without windows. Not only does it grow without soil (can grow in water), it also needs very little light, and an occasional day by the window is enough to keep it healthy. 

2. Pothos (Epipremnum aureum)

Pothos - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

Pothos is well-adapted as a bathroom plant with no light and will send out its vines around the bathroom quite fast. It has beautiful green and yellow foliage and will grow in water as well as soil. It doesn’t require much light and, besides bathrooms, it’s a favorite for fish tanks.

If your Pothos plant isn’t bushy enough, you can easily make it fuller and a better climber with a few tips. You should prune the plant often, apply a balanced fertilizer twice a month, and place it in bright indirect sunlight to make it bushier and livelier. Staking pothos on a moss pole makes the leaves bigger. A healthy pothos will make your bathroom livelier and better-looking.

3. Spider plant ( Chlorophytum comosum)

Spider Plant - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The spider plant has many uses in the bathroom and does even better in windowless bathrooms. It’s one of the best plants for bathroom smells and toxins. According to Gardenine’s master gardener, Alex K. Worley, spider plants absorb toxins like formaldehyde from the air.

It’s also among the best bathroom plants that absorb moisture, thus keeping your bathroom dry and mold-free. Besides that, it doesn’t require much light to thrive and your bathroom’s lack of a window won’t affect its growth.

4. Boston fern (Nephrolepis exaltata)

Boston Fern - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The Boston fern will lend its beauty to your windowless bathroom given that it’s well-adapted to the conditions in there. It needs low light, thrives with artificial light, and does well in high humidity areas. However, take it close to indirect sunlight every few days. Avoid direct sunlight as it’ll damage it. 

5. Philodendron (Philodendron)

Philodendron - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

Philodendron is a creeping plant with beautiful vines that will spread around the bathroom keeping it dry and mold-free. It thrives in warm and humid conditions such as those in your bathroom. Better yet, it doesn’t need much light and will do well in windowless bathrooms as well. 

6. Aloe vera (Aloe vera)

Aloe vera - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The aloe vera plant needs very little water and only one day of sunlight every 7-10 days to remain healthy. As such, it’s one of the best plants for bathroom with no windows owing to the little care needed. In fact, too much sunlight and water might damage it. 

7. Arrowhead plant (Syngonium podophyllum)

Arrowhead Plant - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The arrowhead plant has large leaves shaped like arrowheads and it does well in windowless bathrooms. It doesn’t require much light and will also grow directly in water without any soil. The only trick with it is to replace the water after every few days (about a week is okay). 

8. Snake plant (Sansevieria trifasciata)

Snake Plant - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

Another plant that removes bad smells from the air and thrives in humid, poorly lit environments is the snake plant. This plant absorbs toxins and bad odors from the house and can thrive on fluorescent light. 

9. Chinese evergreen (Aglaonema)

Chinese Evergreen - Best Plants for Windowless Bathroom

The Chinese evergreen plant is quite tough and will thrive in adverse conditions including hot and humid ones like your bathroom. Even if your bathroom has no window, the plant will thrive and spice up its look. 

Besides these plants, others that will do well in the poorly-lot conditions of your bathroom include the ZZ plant, dumb cane, baby rubber plant, cast iron plant, and peace lily. Not only will they liven up your bathroom, but most of them also absorb excessive moisture, bad smells, and toxins. This helps prevent pink mold in bathrooms and other unwanted scenarios like mold and mildew.

How to grow plants in a windowless bathroom

Few plants can survive and thrive without light since they need light to photosynthesize their food. However, you can comfortably grow the plants in your windowless bathroom if you put into action the following aspects:

Use artificial lights

The bathroom, especially when it’s windowless, won’t have enough light for most plants to thrive. This applies to all types of plants even the ones suited to low light conditions. For this reason, you’ll need to supplement their lighting and one way to do so is to use artificial light. 

Also called grow lights, artificial lights for plants need to provide a full light spectrum for the plants to grow. Grow lights are artificial lights which aid photosynthesis in plants and they include high-pressure sodium lights (HPS), fluorescent lights (CFL), and light-emitting diodes (LED).

Move them to the sunlight weekly

If you can’t get the artificial lighting for the plants, simply make a habit of taking the bathroom plants to the window or patio one day a week at least. Some plants will not do well under direct light and need to be only exposed to indirect or filtered light. Even then, you still need plants that do well in low-light and humid conditions. 

Use a mirror next to the bathroom

Place a mirror to reflect natural light into the bathroom. This helps add light to the bathroom without the need to take the plants to the light every other day. Done properly and with a large enough mirror, the bathroom should have enough light for the plants to thrive. This also helps prevent mushrooms in bathrooms as they prefer dark and moist areas.

Keep the bathroom doors open

Another simple technic is to keep the bathroom doors open when not using the bathroom such that light comes in as much as possible. If the bathroom has no window yet there’s enough light outside it, leaving the door open can provide enough light for the plants to thrive. 

A plant that is getting too little light will often shed leaves and starts opening up. If the plant is a creeping one, it’ll likely send its tendrils and vines towards the source of light which isn’t a good sign. Remember that low-light doesn’t mean no light as no bathroom plant can survive total darkness.

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