With many people stuck at home due to online classes, work or quarantine, taking care of plants has been a popular hobby to take on. However, it can be hard for college students who live in dorm rooms or apartments to find the right plant for them.

Madi Madsen, a senior elementary education major, formed a large collection of 26 plants. “It really just turned into a hobby and a lot of my plants ended up making baby plants so they just started collecting over the last couple of years,” Madsen said. 

According to Madsen, the best plants for college students are bamboo and succulents because they do not need to be watered frequently. Madsen said that even though she has a lot of plants, they are easy to take care of. She keeps all her plants on the same watering cycle for the most part so it’s easy to keep track of watering them. Since most of her plants are succulents, they all have the same needs. She waters them all once a week. 

While there are many reasons people buy plants, Madsen got them to add liveliness to her apartment.

“It’s definitely great house décor and in general when I have a lot of plants around, I’m a lot happier,” Madsen said. “It’s something bright that’s around me that I look at every day.”

CWU Greenhouse Manager Jonathan Betz said there is a lot to consider when buying a house plant. Someone should first consider why they want a plant and also what their house conditions are.

Some factors to consider when taking care of a house plant is if they can handle medium light, low light or direct light, according to Betz. Also taking into consideration if a house is dry or really humid and if there are north or south facing windows.

“So maybe you want a really exotic beautiful orchid but if you have a really shady house that is underneath a whole bunch of trees then you might not get the sunlight you need,” Betz said. “Those two factors really make a big difference in what you can grow and then what you want to grow.”

According to Betz, plants are not only aesthetically pleasing, but they also have scientific benefits.

“Plants are a beautiful complement to us as people,” Betz said. “They scrub the air from the waste we give off in carbon dioxide. So there’s the health benefit there as well as the mental and psychological emotional components too of just seeing something beautiful.”

Betz said that the best house plants are the ones that thrive on neglect.

“Those are the plants that can be under or over watered. I think that’s one of the big factors is plants that you know can handle abuse on both sides,” Betz said.

Other good house plants to consider include cactuses, aloe vera plants, ferns, money trees and snake plants, according to an article written by Costa Farms. These plants are all very low maintenance and easy to take care of.

The greenhouse is normally a  good resource for students to get house plants from. However, it is closed due to COVID-19.

“Our green house is currently closed right now to the public and that kind of breaks my heart a little bit,” Betz said. “I really do enjoy having community members as well as college students come in on Friday afternoons.”

At the greenhouse, house plant starters are given away on a donation basis which includes a small plant that is in a 2-inch pot. Betz said he hopes they will be able to reopen in the future and add a sidewalk section to the greenhouse where he could roll out a cart with plants.

“[The greenhouse] became very, very popular to the point where we just couldn’t keep up with the demand for the little house plant starters,” Betz said. “The greenhouse staff does look forward to having the Friday open hours from 1-3 p.m. [back] and that’s a place where people can come to get out of the usual ordinary humdrum of their office and see plants in a different environment [than] they would usually see in Ellensburg.”