Valentine’s day plants that will impress your houseplant lover

Flowers are ephemeral. This Valentine’s Day, why not treat your significant other to a potted plant? Cut flowers, as we all know, eventually die. With a little tender loving care, potted plants (and perhaps even cuttings) have a great chance of surviving for years to come — or at least past that one or two-week threshold with flowers. If you’ve got a houseplant lover to gift, consider presenting them with a Valentine’s Day plant this year to complement their bouquet and box of chocolates. Here are a few of my favorites, from succulent flower dupes to plants with festive pink foliage.

Echeveria

Instead of a bouquet of flowers, why not get your significant other echeverias with flower-shaped leaves? I’m always raiding my mom’s garden to snip cuttings of these guys because they proliferate like mad with adequate sunlight. With the right care, these succulents are the Valentine’s Day plants that are bound to last a while…and produce more offshoots! Echeverias come in pinks and yellows and greens depending on the variety and how much light you give your plant. Give your lover a gift that’ll last forever — unless they overwater it and give it root rot. Another note: these babies are super accessible — you’ll pretty much find them at any garden center and sometimes even at grocery stores like Trader Joe’s.

String of Hearts

You can’t talk about Valentine’s Day without hearts! String of hearts had their moment a few years ago, but they’re starting to be more mainstream, which means you’ll probably find them at your local nursery for a sweet deal. These trailing plants look stunning as hanging plants. I find that my string of hearts is happiest by my windowsill, where it gets plenty of sunlight. It loves fertilizer, so you can start fertilizing it a few weeks after Valentine’s Day when spring hits! Like any plant, it’ll appreciate water, but it does have a succulent quality to it, which means that it stores water inside of its leaves and doesn’t like to be overwatered. You can also find string of hearts in pink variegation!

Syngonium

Tell them you love them with a  syngonium  that flaunts lush, heart-shaped leaves. Also known as the butterfly plant or the arrowhead plant, these plants come in a variety of different colors, from white to a murky olive hue. My personal favorite is the syngonium podophyllum “candy,” which comes in a splash of pink for that romantic and festive splash of blush! Arrowhead plants are fairly easy to care for. I only water mine every two weeks or so. I do recommend giving these plants some humidity since they can get spider mites if left too dry.

Ficus Elastica Ruby

We love a cute pink Valentine’s Day plant! My ficus elastica ruby is my absolute favorite, given to me on my 25th birthday by my own Valentine. If you give your pink rubber plant enough fertilizer and sunlight, it’ll stay a lovely pink hue. I’ve mentioned the rubber plant in a few blogs before — it’s semi-succulent and quite an easy plant to maintain. While it might lose its color in low light conditions, it’ll still survive.

These are just a few of my favorite theme-adjacent Valentine’s Day plants! You can definitely pick out a plant based on your date’s personality or favorite shapes and colors, whatever that may mean. With a little love in the air, these Valentine’s Day plants are bound to thrive.