There are a whole host of houseplants from the common to the exotic. One of the things that makes a common plant common is that is easy to obtain and easy to care for in a wide variety of situations. Here is a list of some of the typical houseplants that are easy to care for.
Spider Plants–one of the most popular houseplants that is also one of the easiest to care for is the airplane plant or the spider plant. The plant is easy to identify by the long, thin striped leaves. The leaves are dark green on the outside and light green in the center; they are only about one half inch to one inch wide, but the leaves can grow to be several feet long. One of the things that makes the spider plant so common is how easy it is to start a new plant. The spider plants have little babies all of the time. The babies develop on shoots that come from the parent plant, and they look like miniature plants. To grow one of these babies, you just cut off the baby plant with a little of the shoot that it is growing on. You can then grow the baby in a cup of water (put the shoot in the water and it will start to develop roots) or you can plant it directly into moist potting soil.
Rubber Plants—rubber plants (or fiscus) are other popular houseplants that are easy to grow and care for. The one thing that the plant needs is sunshine, so if you don’t have a sunny place for this plant you might want to consider another type of plant. The rubber plants are easy to identify by the large, thick, rubbery looking (and feeling) leaves. These leaves are dark green and feature a prominent vein down the middle of the underside of each leave. The leaves grow directly from a large stock or stem that is an inch or more in diameter.
Philodendrons—the philodendron is a plant that doesn’t need that much light. Because of this, the plant is very popular in offices, apartments, and other low-light setting. Not only that, it is a delicate looking but hardy plant that makes a good gift. You can identify one of the common varieties of philodendron by the heart shaped leaves that grow on vine like stems. These leaves are usually a couple of inches long but can grow to be almost palm sized in well cared for plants. One of the important things to know about the philodendron is that the leaves have a mild toxic property. If a child or a pet eats some of a philodendron leave, you should contact poison control to learn how to handle the situation.
Ferns—another typical type of houseplant is the fern. There are plenty of different varieties of ferns, but they all share easy to identify leaves. The leaves of a fern are often called fronds and they unroll from a tight ball that emerges from the ground. The leaves of a fern are quite distinctive, because the whole leaf is made up of many small, delicate looking leaves that grow perpendicularly to the main vein. If you think of ribs coming off a backbone you will have the basic structure of the front. However, each of the ribs is delicate and looks to be serrated. Some ferns feature leaves perpendicular to the main vein that are made of even smaller leaves perpendicular to the vein on the smaller leaf. This gives the fern a delicate and feathery appearance.