When starting out as a new plant parent most people look online for the best plants for beginners and more often than not you will be recommended a few, if not all of these.

Best plants for new plant hobbyists?

• Spider plant
• Succulents
• A ZZ plant
• Pothos
• Snake plant
• Ficus elastica

When I started out with plants I listened to what everyone suggested as good beginner plants and started to regret it very soon after. It was less than a month before I realised I chose these “best plants” because they were “easy care” and not because they were plants that I particularly liked or had an interest in. 

These plants are always recommended because they have relatively simple care needs and are hardy so have more chance of surviving if you don’t get the care exactly right. In my opinion these aren’t reasons enough to get that specific plant unless you actually really like it and have an interest in learning about it and watching it grow long term.

The problem with choosing regularly recommended “best plants for starter plant hobbyists” is that they are very common and in a lot of cases not very interesting. I have had every one of these six plants mentioned above and at the time of writing this I only have one still in my care. I got bored and gave them away and one even died. The spider plant that died was one of the most difficult I’ve found to get the care right for and it’s one of the top recommended beginner plants.

I find it so much better to find a plant you really love and do all the research on how best to care for it. You are much more likely to invest the time teaching yourself about their care and the best environment for a plant that you really love and want. Having plants that you love and want to care for can be great for a persons mental health and also creates a bit of self care/you time when doing plant chores (not sure why they are referred to as chores because I find it incredibly relaxing).

I am a relatively new plant mum and I have been able to keep my collection at a nice size because I only get plants that I really like and can provide the perfect environment for them to thrive in. I’m making a conscious effort to learn the environment in my space so I know what plants will be happy here and am not sentencing any plants to death.

I have asked a couple of my plant parent friends what their first plants were and why they chose that specific plant as I wanted to make sure it wasn’t just me that felt this way and see if they felt they chose the best plants for them. These are some of the responses I got,

“first plants were succulents and a snake plant because they were good starter plants” The succulents both died soon after going to their new home and the snake plant is still going strong many months later. “I think succulents could be a good beginner plant but they need a lot of researching”

– Lamarra

“First plant I got was a chilli plant because I wanted to make chilli sauce. Found the care relatively easy as a beginner and found the milder the chilli the easier the care in most cases so I recommend jalapenos as a decent starter plant.”

– Shane

I wanted to show a couple of examples because it’s important to note that for some people the traditionally recommended best plants beginners work very well if they only want one or two easy plants to decorate a space. I do however think that if you’re wanting to care for plants as a hobby or to help with your mental health then I strongly recommend ignoring all recommendations and do some research and see what plants call out to you, what will you fall in love with and make a priority to keep healthy.

Remember that the best plants for someone else may not be the best plants for you.

I plan on doing an entire planty series on this blog so please stay tuned if you’re interested in hear more about my personal plant mum journey, seeing planty gift ideas for your plant loving friends and to keep updated on the progress of my lovely plant babies that I will be sharing in a soon to come post.