9 Houseplants for Midcentury Modern Home Styles
Decorating your home is a rewarding activity—everyday objects add life into empty spaces. Plants are the best decoration. They change as they grow, providing year-round interest along walls, near couches, and countertops.
When decorating with houseplants that accent the midcentury modern home style, it’s helpful to know its origins and themes. This style arose as a descendant of the midcentury style. It started in the 1940s and extended through the mid-1970s.
The style arose due to many factors. Designers wanted to stress the functionality of objects, expressing beauty through simplicity. Using new techniques available after World War II, manufacturers were able to mass-produce these elegant designs. For a price, anyone could bring the midcentury modern style into their home.
Recently, this style has revived! Many retro-futuristic designs that are common now are humble descendants of the old style. Wood, metal, and other classic materials fuse with ones that emerged in the 1900s, like plastic, vinyl, and fiberglass.
The houseplants on this list enhance these materials. They offer shifting organic shapes that add depth and texture to the space. Without further ado, here are nine houseplants for midcentury modern home styles.
Snake Plant
What better way to enhance the space than with subtly variegated sword-like leaves? With dozens of species and varieties available, there’s sure to be a snake plant that matches your home’s aesthetic.
One special cultivar is the whale fin snake plant, Dracaena masoniana. It reaches epic heights of up to five feet tall with wide, thick, and variegated foliage. This species is perfect for large, open spaces with bright, indirect sunlight. Use it for outdoor decoration in hardiness zones 9 through 11.
A hardier species for homes is the classic snake plant, Dracaena trifasciata. This species is hardy from zones 10 through 12. It appreciates a dry soil culture with the surface drying between waterings. Find varieties of this type with yellow, green, or white leaves that match well with many different interiors.
Monstera
Bare walls in a midcentury modern home present the perfect opportunity for growing monstera houseplants. These vigorous climbers clamber up tree trunks in the wild, growing up to 70 feet tall! They’ll stay smaller than that inside your home. However, they’ll climb as high as your house will allow.
For the biggest, healthiest foliage with plenty of holes, give your monstera plant bright indirect light for most of the day. Some direct sunlight is okay, so long as it’s for no longer than an hour or two. Morning sunlight is preferable over hard afternoon light. Like snake plants, monsteras appreciate a semi-moist culture with the surface drying between waterings.
Plain green is the perfect color to match the black, wood-brown, or white colors common in midcentury modern objects. Consider choosing a special cultivar if you’d like to spice things up. ‘Albo Variegata’ is rare and expensive, with creamy white and green foliage. ‘Thai Constellation’ has splotches of bright yellow splashed throughout its deep green foliage.
Blushing Bromeliad
Blushing bromeliads truly do blush! They have intricate leaves that form a vase-like cup for collecting water and nutrients. Many varieties offer hues like red, maroon, green, pink, yellow, and white. Go for plain green, or choose one like Neoregelia carolinae—it has soft, red blush low on green lance-shaped leaves.
Blushing bromeliad is but one of many bromeliads. The term refers to many species in the bromeliad, or pineapple, family Bromeliaceae. Any of these species are perfect for your home. Air plants, or those in the genus Tillandsia, are also bromeliads!
Because these species rely on trees for collecting water and nutrients, you’ll want to simulate their natural conditions indoors. Plant them in an orchid potting mix with plenty of bark, and place them under bright but indirect sunlight. Keep their center cup filled with water, and let their soil dry out between waterings.
ZZ Plant
ZZ plants are tough, dependable, and reliable. They grow in parts of Africa underneath tall trees, taking advantage of the dappled sunlight common under their canopies. These herbaceous perennials sprout from bulbous rhizomes that reside deep underground, storing water and nutrients in case drought strikes.
These houseplants are perfect for midcentury modern interior decorating because of their long-lived lush green foliage that thrives in almost any home. Long stems extend from the soil with dozens of these leaves along their stems, creating a bushy, tropical appearance. These plants grow as wide or narrow as you let them, and they’ll fill out containers over many years.
Water ZZ plants considerably less than your other houseplants. They don’t need consistent moisture because they store water in their rhizomes. Let the soil dry a few inches down between waterings, then apply plenty of moisture when they’re thirsty with drooping leaves.
Dragon Tree
Dragon trees sprout narrow, sword-like leaves in clusters at the ends of their branches. The leaves grow in a rosette, forming a circling shape from each branch tip. These trees live long lives, so you won’t have to purchase more plants to replace them. They’ll grow tall, spindly, and many-branched with age.
Mature specimens gain white bark that contrasts well with the bright green leaves. Choose a dragon tree variety if you’d prefer more colors. ‘Magenta’ has green inner leaf sections with pink margins, while ‘Tricolor’ has white, green, and red stripes.
Dragon trees need little care to thrive. Give them consistent moisture during the growing season, and water them less during winter. They’ll grow best near a window with reflected sunlight, although they tolerate some direct or dappled sunlight throughout the day.
Fiddle Leaf Fig
Fiddle leaf figs grow to be gigantic trees in their native range, up to 100 feet! Indoors, they’ll give you interesting textures and dinner-plate-sized leaves on specimens up to 10 feet tall. They’re perfect for bright corners, doorways, or empty spaces that need organic shapes.
These trees need more indirect sunlight than other plants on this list. They thrive underneath taller trees in their natural habitat in Africa, so they’re well adapted to grow inside our homes. Ensure they stay away from heaters or drafts, and keep their soil moist, but not soggy.
With one happy tree, you’ll have all you need to propagate more. Prune one of the branches, remove the lower leaves off the stem, and place the cutting into soil or a glass of water. Don’t worry about the pruning wound since one or two new shoots will grow from the cut. The cutting will form roots after a few weeks, giving you a free fiddle leaf fig tree!
Prayer Plant
Prayer plants receive their names because of their unique growing habit. Their leaves move around based on changing light patterns so they absorb the maximum amount of sunlight possible. At night, they fold up to rest until morning. If you set up a camera with a time-lapse feature, you can see them moving and folding.
Prayer plants are ideal for newly styled homes as they are cute, quaint, and tidy. They’ll fit on a small countertop, windowsill, or bookshelf. These perennials appreciate humidity, so the bathroom is another ideal spot to put them.
With red-green variegated leaves and maroon leaf undersides, these houseplants are true stunners. Give them consistent moisture, ensuring they don’t dry out. Cut back on watering as winter approaches to avoid root rot.
Pothos
This vine is on this list because it’s the easiest to grow! Pothos are undeniable stars indoors. They thrive with low light and little water, and they tolerate neglect. Snake their vines amongst your tables, shelves, and paintings.
These vining perennials also work well as tidy, bushy plants if you dislike long vines. Their green or green-yellow leaves add lushness to harsh interior spaces. There are also cultivars with white-green, neon yellow, or gray-blue leaves. Choose a pothos houseplant variety that works best with your home’s unique midcentury or modern style.
Pothos are easy to propagate. Simply snip off their stems, place them in water or soil, and watch them grow new roots and shoots. They also survive well in jars of water. Use interesting, decorative, and clear jars to house them so you can see their growing roots.
Pinstripe Calathea
Pinstripe calathea is similar to a prayer plant with shifting leaves that respond to light. They’re both members of the prayer plant family Marantaceae. The difference is that pinstripe calathea features thin, pink lines on green leaves with dark purple undersides. The foliage grows off of thin stems that sprout from underground roots.
This is a showstopper plant that’s ideal for locations that garner people’s attention. Place it in the center of a round table, next to a couch on a small table, or near a prominent window. Pinstripe calathea isn’t too abrasive, though, as it works well with simple, elegant designs. Plant it in large, square planters for a grand effect.
Give pinstripe calatheas similar care as prayer plants. Keep their soil moist but not soggy, and grant them lots of humidity. They thrive under bright, indirect sunlight near a window. They dislike chlorinated water, so give them filtered instead of tap water to help them grow well.
