Have you done a search? Lots of listings for houseplants that tolerate low light levels.

Not sure exactly what you are referring to as "white lily" so can't comment on that choice. If you mean peace lily or Spathiphyllum, then yes, that is on most lists.

Thank you! Yes Peace Lily is what I meant. I used to be plant enthusiast while I was in the Bahamas but I now live in NJ, a different temperate zone altogether!

Yes, I’ve done a search and instead of trying out plants I thought I would ask members of this forum.

I am also wondering if anthuriums would be able to survive low natural light conditions.

Anthuriums will survive low light conditions.....they just will not bloom well.

Define "natural light surroundings." :-) Anthuriums will actually bloom reasonably well under most of them. I've had one since I was...well, for more years than I care to count. It's ranged from having 2 eastern facing windows to being 10' away from an eastern facing window with a little enhancement to a western facing shielded window with occasinal enhancement (if a 15 watt LED ambient light on sometimes counts) and always been fine. Blooming varies from great to pretty good.

They actually prefer indirect light...but a lot of it. The most common cause of them not blooming is incorrect watering, they tend to like it on the damper side.

These are not really "ignore-me" sorts of plants, but as long as you remember to water, I'd put them on the scale at "relatively easy." They're not finicky about feeding, care, or placement once you work that out initially.

To assist further in answering your original question from a local tri-state standpoint and choosing very easy plants, I picked three below (plus a brightly-blooming bonus!) If you'd rather another care regimen, let us know. I've seen all of these at our Home Depots and Lowe's and pretty much every local nursery and half the grocery stores I've been in.

Snake plants do really well locally indoors under incredibly poor conditions if you're more the set-and-forget sort. https://www.thespruce.com/snake-plant-care-overview-1902772

My mother couldn't kill these. That would be the takeaway point here. Note that while they will survive in very dim conditions, they're going to flourish best in brighter conditions and show active growth there. There's a Mother-In-Law-Tongue in every size, too.

Note that it is moderately toxic, so if you have a chewy cat, puppy, or toddler, this might not be the plant for you.

For something with more of a vine, it's hard to go wrong with a pothos. I twine my vines back into the main plant to make a huge pile of leaves. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/houseplants/pothos/pothos-plant-care.htm

About the only thing they can't stand is direct sunlight and...well, mine manages 2-4 hours a day of late day sunlight with no major issues, so they adapt fine with only some leaf bleaching.

Want more pothos? Cut some pothos and root in water or directly in wet soil. It's a snap.

Pothos are practically bulletproof but are, again, toxic, but less so than the above.

The garden-variety corn plant is fun, too. https://www.thespruce.com/grow-dracaena-fragrans-indoors-1902748

While a stickler will say it says "part sun," they do just fine in deep shade/little indirect light, as the one ten feet away from my living room window will attest. They do lose the stripes and cease growth, but they do survive. And they stay the size they started, which I actually appreciate. That one "hates" its locale so much it blooms yearly.

You can vacation these outside on your (shady) patio or (shady) yard if you want every summer.

They're not all that particular about watering in shadier and dim conditions, which is good, because I water the one in the living room about once, twice a month.

Bonus: Thanksgiving, Christmas, Easter Cactus. These bloom yearly (to twice a year) in bright, indirect light. https://www.gardeningknowhow.com/ornamental/cacti-succulents/thanksgiving-cactus/thanksgiving-cactus-plant.htm

Easy to care for (water, feed every now and again). Ignore the complex blooming instructions, they'll do quite fine on their own most of the time. Just don't put plant lights on them if the plant is growing well (one that gets incidental plant light in my office does not bloom).

Mine live on western windowsills, getting bright light and even a little sun from 3 to 7 hours a day (they don't need it). My mother's live on northern windowsills tilted a little west, getting a tiny bit of sun in June (all daughters of mine) but bright northlight otherwise. They all blossom red, magenta, and pink in November and December.

Cheery, easy to grow, just water when dry and feed a bit during the growing season.

As long as you have the light, you can grow just about anything in NJ. I live in NJ, and grow..., Citrus, palms (dozens of species), cycads, Oleanders, Ficus, cacti, bromeliads, bananas, papaya, dwarf coconut, guava, sugarcane, and much more. If your question is which ones are best to be grown purely indoors (almost all my plants spend the growing season outside where they have access to an unobstructed, southern exposure, all day long), then, I would suggest the following:

Aglaonema (Chinese evergreen)

Spathiphyllum (Peace lily)

Philodendrons

Aspidistra (Cast Iron)

ZZ plant (forget the Latin for this one)

Sansevieria (Snake plants)

several palms (Chamaedorea, Rhapis palm, Howea/Kentia palm)

even my Ming Aralia is very happy in a northern exposure, and it's on top of a radiator

How much indoor light is there?

Thank you SO much, Morpheuspa and Phoenix Rising. This is all very valuable information.

What I mean by “low natural light surroundings” (for lack of better choice of words), are indoor spots that are not near windows so not much natural light, but bright indoor lighting. Not gro lights or LED lamps, just bright light from regular LED light bulbs.

I have had no luck with plants in my current apartment (I have zero outdoor space). I used to have a balcony in my other apartment but not in this one. I live in Northeast NJ, across the river from New York City and my windows are southwest facing. I’ve had good res

Tru dat. Right now, indoors, I have an out of season ageratum in bloom (and six more sprouting), four hibiscus, two poinsettia (I like them as houseplants), a schefflera, a random mustard plant that's wintering over just fine, and twelve desert rose. Ten of the latter are fully dormant and waiting for spring on bathroom windowsills. Two are mostly-dormant but have green leaves that look rather sad.

I tend to keep indoor plants indoors, but the mustard will go back outside, as will all the desert roses. And I simply enjoy forcing blooming plants out of season for some winter color--with ageratum, it's not hard and I probably collect 30,000 seeds every year anyway.

With some bright windowsills, the possibilities are almost endless.

It's not like New York, New Jersey and Pennsylvania are some dreary wasteland. We've got a bright week of harvestable sunshine coming up that my indoor plants are going to love and the days just get longer from here. :-)

(Cont’d) good results with pothos and dwarf palms in my other apartment along with dracena. in this one I managed to kill a dwarf bamboo, the dracens I had for nearly 10 years and the dwarf palm I had for over 12 years!!! Being from the Bahamas, I love outdoor gardening, but living in an apartment building has not been favorable for indoor houseplants.

I looked through the links Morpheuspa (thank you so much) and found them very helpful. My list thus far has been similar to both yours and Phoenix Rising’s. I also thought the Mother-in-Law tongue may be a safe way to go. I also had Spider plants in mind, although I’m not a big fan of how they look. i thought of cacti and succulents and maybe even purchasing a terrarium. I’m still on the fence about that, but I did think it would look ok nice on my tiny desk against the window.

to give you a better idea of my studio apartment layout, I have one wall that is only windows, but against that wall is a large vent, a three seater couch and a tiny desk. I don’t have a window sill. I really can’t bank on any kind of natural light until maybe the Spring. I just feel that I need a cheery plant or two to make the space nicer.

Phoenix Rising: I wil

"indoor spots that are not near windows so not much natural light, but bright indoor lighting. Not gro lights or LED lamps, just bright light from regular LED light bulbs....my windows are southwest facing"

You don't need to enhance light for most things and a SW exposure is pretty good for a lot of plants (optimal, perhaps not, but pretty good). Any of the "easy" plants I listed will be happy in that apartment within view of a window except the blooming holiday cactus, which will want to be pretty close to the window (but not in much direct sunlight, although they'll tolerate it).

That snake plant particularly. Again--my mother couldn't kill that. Seriously.

A lot of the plants Phoenix and I listed secondarily would be less happy unless they're right up at the window, in which case they'd be fine. I grow my (regularly blooming) hibiscus at a southwestern window. I do wrap it in white LED lighting for the Christmas season as well just for kicks.

The blooming ageratum would need to be on the windowsill and might still need some enhanced lighting to remain in full blossom (it's really a part-shade plant intended for outdoors; I enhance it under 40 watts of LED lighting).

Window size matters. 1970's windows were those awful porthole things that let in like 10 lumens and...ick. I have the modern huge windows downstairs and the more-normal ones upstairs (but doubles to triples), so lots of light.

The modern LED bulb doesn't make a half-bad plant light in and of itself, actually, particularly in warm white (2700-3000K).

Keyword there is "half-bad," although I've certainly used them in a pinch to very good effect and they're cheap. A desk lamp with an LED bulb in it, on a plant, counts as light. Keep it on 15 hours a day, 2 days a week, and it really will help a struggling plant. We can argue bulb spectra for days, but frankly, 85% the plant lights I see have questionable spectra and hyped marketing in and of themselves; the GE bulbs are some of the best that I've found on the market, relatively natural looking in terms of visual color, and not overpriced. For smaller plants, just keep it four inches away and check that the leaves are cool enough not to burn (that should be more than far enough away).

For larger plants, one bulb usually won't do--but it helps.

(Cont‘d) will look up your list and between yours and Morpheuspa will likely pick 1-2 plants. Pothos is a nice option, but I don’t have space for a vine. I did have a beautiful pathos plant that I draped over my bookshelf in the prior apartment.

So far, I’m leaning towards a Peace Lily because they have such nice, full deep green leaves and the added bonus of a few lilies. I would like one for my desk so I will consider a terrarium, but only after reading through your lists.

I have bright indoor lighting. I really should get a SAD lamp lol!!!

will keep you updated! Have some reading to do and websites to scope now :-).

Yeah, I have gas heat and it's great. Warm, fast, heat. I also have an Aprilaire and thankfully because without it we also have constant nosebleeds.

Even so, we add two additional humidifiers to that because neither of us like dry air. With all that, we can push the humidity in here to--as of right now--40%. It'll fall back into the low thirties by morning again as the humidifiers run dry overnight and auto-shutdown.

A good ultrasonic can really improve the air in any apartment or condo. Been there, done that.

Morpheuspa: how is your poinsettia surviving? My sister gave me one for New Years and the leaves are ALREADY dropping rapidly and frankly looks like the plant is dying. I try to keep the soil damp at all times. Breaking my heart. :-(

Phoenix Rising: yes you are right. This space is low humidity and we have central heating in our building. The vents are changed twice a year from heat to cool and cool to heat. Sucks.

The Chinese Evergreen looks interesting. I’m still going down the list and considering the possibility of each to purchase. Another thing you will NOT like to hear is that I may purchase 1-2 plants off of Amazon, if not a local grower.

I buy lots of stuff off eBay and Etsy, and try to make up for my carbon footprint by growing more plants than G'd, LOL.

P.S., I wish we did have more local growers, but the BIG BOX stores have come to replace local growers (including those for tropical plants).

It's years old and doing fine, practically a small bush and has a daughter I cut off it last year that lives in my office.

https://extension.umn.edu/houseplants/poinsettia

Poinsettia are a bit touchy. Remove all the dead and dying leaves, and shock is natural on some plants post the holidays. Their natural blossoming time is actually not December, they're greenhouse-forced and cycled horribly hard. Leaf loss, horrible looking plants, and high death rates are common. Some can bloom into May. Some just...don't.

One, flush out the soil. They feed the poor things too much, so there's a huge salt build-up in the soil. Even NYC water is better than the ion balance in that pot right now (I repotted mine after the holidays, but it's not strictly required). Just run water through it until it pees out a quart or more of water. Let dry until fairly dry, but don't let the plant wilt. Water as needed (as the link describes). They hate being totally dry and soaking wet, but otherwise aren't all that touchy.

If you do want to repot or change soil, just choose any good potting mix, they're not that touchy (some people say they are, I've never found them to be). I just use unadulterated Miracle-Gro Moisture Control Potting Mix (I can get it cheap and delivered, which, right now, are two things I require). Like I said, it's not necessary.

Feed gently during the growing season (March-ish to October-ish), but otherwise just water

Put the plant in the brightest light possible. Mine is near a southern window, plus has a cobbled 40 watt plant light on it 4 hours a day (it's kind of huddled around the lights with some other plants downstairs that need more than they get). A southwestern windowsill should be fine, though, for basic growth and survival. Again, that spectrum is weird because...cobbled. 8 watts full spectrum, 32 watts warm white. Bar lights, LED. With that on, you can read quite comfortably in the living room fifteen feet away on the couch. :-)

Extra lighting really isn't required but since a few others get it, these benefit as well.

Come summer, I put them on the deck, except for the hottest part of summer, which they don't care for. I move them into the eastern garden at that point to shield them from the hottest sunlight and weather.

I don't push rebloom as I simply like them as houseplants and mine get too much light to rebloom anyway.

I ended up purchasing a 2 foot tall snake floor plant from Costa Farm courtesy of Amazon. Stayed as safe as I could get Lol. I will maybe try a Peace Lilly and succulents for my little desk in the future!

You cannot go wrong with a snake plant. :-) Just don't let it freeze, so plan on getting it before the cold weather hits it.

This is also the season where I race the UPS lady to the doorstep before my acrylic paints freeze. Plants die. Acrylic paint separates when it goes under 32 and never folds together properly again. My last order for the winter arrives Thursday--poor planning on my part. :-)

For my little desk, I am thinking of purchasing a terrarium.

Poinsettias..., may be the only plant on earth that I really don't care for in the least! And I love Euphorbias! My holiday plant of choice are the epiphytic cacti.