Top 9 Centerpiece Plants for Dining Table
Plants can be an excellent way to spruce up a dining table. While indoor plants can sometimes be relegated to the corners of rooms or atop small side tables, they can make a fantastic centerpiece – especially in a room where you might host guests or spend time with family.
Picking the right plant for your dining table depends on your personality and the dining room. We’ve put together some potential plant pick ideas to inspire you and help you pick the plants that best complement your dining space.
Direct Sun
Nearly every plant needs light, but this section is dedicated to plants that prefer brighter and more direct sun. If your dining room is located in a well-lit room, perhaps facing windows or even in your kitchen (which is common in modern homes).
The plant selections here will add some vivid green and fun shapes – everything you need for a fantastic dining table centerpiece!
1. Succulents
Succulents are incredibly trendy across the board but stand out spectacularly in bright light. They mix well with light wall coloring and scream with tranquility and sophistication. Succulents come in various patterns and colors and are easy to care for indoors.
Combining them in a line or on a flat wooden plate in the center of your dining table will impress your guests and leave calming energy. Kids love the shapes and patterns these plants can form.
2. Croton
It’s hard to miss the Croton plant – with leaves that come in all kinds of colors, streaked in red or deep greens with vibrant yellows. This is another plant that demands attention and can balance out a brighter room with its contrasting colors and tones.
You can use one of these as a standalone piece or combine a group of them if you have a larger table or dining space. The Croton likes bright light best because it brings out all the gorgeous colors this plant has to offer.
Crotons are easy to look after. They’ll need to be watered semi-regularly, but it’s best to urge on the cautious side and wait for the first few inches of soil to dry out.
3. Cacti
Like succulents, Cacti come in a wide variety of shapes, sizes, and colors. Having one small cactus on a table won’t probably do much but combine a group, and you have an excellent spectacle.
Cacti are incredibly easy to look after. They’re adapted to spend weeks in dry areas without rainfall. Stick them in a pot or planter and keep an eye on them occasionally, and they’ll be fine. Don’t overwater these plants, or they’ll rot away in front of your eyes.
You can let your imagination run wild with Cacti and recreate a miny rock landscape on your dining room table.
Interesting fact: Cacti also make great office plants (due to not needing natural light. Artificial lights are great for them).
Bright Indirect Light
Suppose your dining room is between two rooms or set in an area with access to dappled light. In that case, this is perfect for plants that prefer access to more indirect light but will burn or have their foliage damaged by direct light.
4. Snake Plants
A favorite among house plant owners, and for very good reason: the easy-going, adaptable snake plant can make a stellar centerpiece for your dining room.
Most snake plant varieties will have firm, upright, and almost sword-like leaves banded with silver, gold, or grey tones around the edges. The snake plant’s upright growth pattern goes well with modern tastes and does well in more minimalist surroundings.
Snake plants are very hands-off. They don’t need a ton of fertilizer, it’s hard to underwater them, and they grow pretty slowly.
Longer and larger tables look fantastic with a group of snake plants arrayed in a line, but smaller and circular tables will look great with just one.
5. Pothos
Pothos comes in all varieties and is very popular as a trailing or vine plant that you can hang on shelves. However, some Pothos, such as the Golden Pothos, can make excellent standalone centerpieces.
The Green and yellow tints on the leaves combined with the curling and long stems can give an almost fairytale-like effect to a dining room they’re in. Pothos can freshen up a room, purify the air and help remove bad odors.
Pothos plants are low maintenance and easy to care for. To maximize the visual appeal of the Pothos, you want to grow large leaves – which we have a guide for.
6. Syngonium
It can also be referred to as an Arrowhead. This indoor plant is perfect for your dining table – the pointed leaves and colorful highlights (which run throughout the veins) make this an attractive standalone centerpiece option.
Syngonium can come in different colors and tones. If you want more contrast (which you might prefer if you have a lighter-colored room), then opt for a darker variety like the Syngonium “Merry Maria” which also has a subtler rose tint.
Both large and small tables look fantastic with just one of these, but they can be used as a core of a group display.
Low Light
Low-light dining rooms are also quite common. If yours is more centrally located and away from any windows, some plants won’t thrive in these conditions and will start to look faded.
Fortunately, there are many great low-light indoor plants for dining tables that can breathe a lot of life into the space.
7. Calathea
The Calathea is a beautiful plant with striking green leaves, scalloped edges, various other hues, and all sorts of varieties.
This plant can grow large but also grows very slowly. You’re not going to have a gigantic plant on your table all of a sudden, but you will most likely have to manage its growth somewhat.
Calathea is a forgiving plant. While it’s not drought tolerant, it can handle it if you forget to water it occasionally from time to time.
8. Monstera
Monsteras can add a bold tropical feel to any room in your house but goes well in lower-light dining rooms. These rooms may have darker-colored walls, and the Monstera fits great in these surroundings.
The Monstera starts as denser and “bush-like,” but it wants to extend its vines as it grows. You can keep it shorter with regular pruning; or you can take a cutting and put it into a container with some water.
This plant goes very well on its own and doesn’t need much company – but you can make it the centerpiece and surround it with other low-light-tolerating plants.
9. Bromeliad
The Bromeliad is bold, beautiful, and versatile, able to lend itself well to all kinds of modern decor and styles. This plant can have beautiful blooms which last for weeks with vibrant colors that contrast with the long leaves. They can flower in shades of orange, yellow, red, and pink.
However, the plant grows from the bottom, and the bloom (which acts as the mother plant) will decline. Bromeliads are fairly drought tolerant, and the leaves won’t start to wither if you forget to water them a few times.
Bromeliads can look fantastic arranged in groups, bringing color and energy into low-light rooms.
