Before you decide on the plants you are going to buy, you should plan the accommodations they are to receive once you get them home. If you live in a house or an apartment with exposures on all sides, it’s best to try to plan your arrangement around a south-facing window. A southern exposure gets the most sun, an eastern one next most, then west, with the north-facing windows getting the least. As we have said, not all plants need direct sunlight; some actually are bothered by it, but whereas you can always provide shade in a sunny window, it is harder to try to induce the sun to shine into your north windows in the dead of winter. Therefore as a starter use a southern exposure. Of course, a bay window on the south side of the house is the perfect answer to an indoor gardener’s dream. Here you get the sun almost all day long.
Plants grown in sunny windows, and that includes almost all of the flowering varieties, will tend to turn their blossoms and foliage toward the sun. Since you are growing plants at home for the enjoyment of those in the house rather than passers-by who might look in the window, it is wise to turn the pots every day or two so that the flowers won’t grow in a completely lopsided manner.
We said earlier that many plants will grow without direct sun. That is true, but no plant will grow without light. Light is one of the essentials to the synthesis or process of plant growth. If you want, you can keep a Snake Plant or a pot of English Ivy in the dim recesses of a back hall for a short time, but even these hardy specimens won’t last too long under these conditions. You will note that first their leaves will lose their luster, then the plants themselves will begin to droop and the leaves to drop off, and eventually, no matter how you feed and water them, they will die.