The 12 best front door plants for good Feng Shui
Houseplants are really having a moment right now, and for good reason. From a design perspective, they add beautiful shapes and colors to a space. Many plants also help to improve indoor air quality.1
What you might not know is that your plant friends can also improve the flow of qi (life force energy) in your home. Strategically placing plants in certain areas of your home can invite more balance and harmony into your life, and they can even support an intention or goal that you are working on.
Plants and Feng Shui
In feng shui, we work with many different tools to shift the qi in a home. One way that we bring in specific types of energy is by adding certain items with intention, including plants.
Healthy plants are a source of positive qi, or life force energy. They are also a beautiful way to bring more nature into your home, which is especially welcomed as we spend more and more time indoors and on our devices. Plants also represent the wood element in the five elements system used in feng shui. We often add plants to a space with the intention of cultivating more wood element qualities like vitality, growth, and healing.
Front Door and Feng Shui
The front door is one of the most important areas of your home from a feng shui perspective. Even if you often come into your home through a side door or garage door, we consider the front door to be the “mouth of qi” in feng shui. This is where energy and opportunities can enter your home and flow to you. Your front door also represents your face to the world and the world sees you.
Ideally, your front door should be set up to welcome and invite positive qi into your home. A strong front door is in good repair and easy to get to. Before adding any plants or other feng shui adjustments, it’s always a good idea to take care of any mundane issues. Does your door squeak? Is the knob dirty? Is there any clutter that makes it hard to find or open your front door? If you notice any problems that need to be addressed, start there. It’s also a good idea to start using your front door regularly if you don’t already.
Once your front door is set up for success on a more mundane level, you can start to bring in elements to enhance the energy in this part of your home. Plants are a great way to uplift the qi in the entryway of your space and invite more growth and kindness into your home.
Our Favorite Plants for the Front Door
In general, the most inviting feng shui plants are ones with soft, rounded leaves. If your goal is to welcome visitors and opportunities, you might not want to choose something with sharp thorns or spikes. It’s also important to find a plant that will do well in this part of your home, so be sure to do some research and make sure you’ve chosen something with the right light and temperature requirements.
According to Laura Cerrano, feng shui expert and president and CEO of Feng Shui Manhattan, when it comes to picking plants for your front door, "you need to take into consideration the size of the foyer, amount of natural light filtering into the foyer, and the size and type of floral you are placing by the front entrance.”
Here are our 12 favorite plants for the front door that have good feng shui.
If you have space for a bigger plant, an areca palm can bring a lot of life energy to your space. This is a great plant to activate a stagnant corner. Depending on where you live, you could even have it outside on your front doorstep during the warmer months, and then bring it inside when the weather starts to cool down. Areca palms also have the added benefits of filtering and purifying the air.
- Name: Areca Palm (Dypsis lutescens)
- Light: Full to partial sun
- Water: Water when soil dries out
- Mature Size: Up to 7 feet tall
Monstera has beautiful, heart-shaped leaves that are great for inviting more love and kindness into your life. These plants can also grow quickly under the right conditions, which can be fun and rewarding to witness. Just train it up a moss pole or prune it regularly to keep it from spreading too wide.
- Name: Monstera deliciosa (Monstera deliciosa)
- Light: Medium to bright, indirect light
- Water: Allow soil to dry out between waterings
- Mature Size: 10 to 15 feet tall and 8 feet wide
Fiddle leaf figs are beautiful plants, and they’re quite popular right now. Their upright trunks and large, striking leaves can be an uplifting addition to your front door area. They can also grow to be quite tall, so this is a good choice if you want to make a bold statement in your entryway. Fiddle leaf figs are not the easiest plants to grow, but learning to care for them can be a powerful way to cultivate compassion and kindness.
- Name: Fiddle Leaf Fig (Ficus lyrata)
- Light: Bright, indirect light
- Water: Water when top 2 inches of soil are dry
- Mature Size: Up to 10 feet tall
If you want to uplift your entryway with a plant but you’re not confident about your green thumb, try a pothos. These plants are very forgiving, so they’re ideal for beginners. They also have beautiful trailing stems which makes them a great candidate for a hanging planter or an accent on a higher shelf or windowsill.
- Name: Pothos (Epipremnum spp.)
- Light: Bright, indirect light to partial shade
- Water: Water when top 2 inches of soil are dry
- Mature Size: Vines can grow up to 10 feet long
Peace lilies are striking plants with beautiful rounded white flowers. When it comes to inviting plants, Cerrano believes this one is super inviting and can provide a lovely background for your entryway.
- Name: Peace Lily (Spathiphyllum wallisii)
- Light: Most light conditions are fine, but will usually only flower in a brighter spot
- Water: Water when the top 1 inch of soil feels dry
- Mature Size: 1 to 4 feet tall and wide
Another great plant for your front door that promotes feng shui is the snake plant. “I know to some, the sound of 'snake plant' may be off-putting; however, they are very easy to care for and have a great personality,” says Cerrano. These plants are ideal for narrow entryways because they grow upwards rather than out.
- Name: Snake Plant (Dracaena spp.)
- Light: Low light to bright, indirect light
- Water: Water when soil is completely dried out
- Mature Size: Up to 3 feet tall, depending on species
“You want to select plants that suit the front entrance’s spacial dynamics [as opposed to] overwhelming it,” says Cerrano. A weeping fig tree is a simple plant with rounded leaves that won’t overwhelm your space. Its smaller leaves still add a statement without overpowering the foyer. They look really pretty either the door inside or stationed outside if the climate you live in allows it.
- Name: Weeping Fig Tree (Ficus benjamina)
- Light: Bright, indirect light
- Water: Keep soil moist, but not soggy
- Mature Size: Up to 6 feet tall
A common feng shui plant is the jade plant. This small-to-medium succulent is fairly easy to care for and looks really nice on a table in an entryway. These plants are commonly given as a housewarming gift because it is said to promote prosperity and friendship—two qualities that make it a great choice for your front door. As a smaller plant, it won’t overwhelm a small entryway.
- Name: Jade Plant (Crassula spp.)
- Light: Full sun to bright, indirect light
- Water: Keep soil moist but not soggy
- Mature Size: Up to 5 feet tall
The money tree is a good luck charm and is said to attract wealth and abundance, which makes it an obvious choice for a front door plant for feng shui. It’s often given as a housewarming gift and helps balance energies in your home. The braided trunk is also very pretty to look at.
- Name: Money Tree (Pachira aquatica)
- Light: Bright, indirect light to partial shade
- Water: Water when the top 2 inches of soil are dry
- Mature Size: Up to 8 feet tall
Calamondin Tree
If you live in a warm enough climate, you should go with a citrus tree, like the calamondin tree. The more fruit the plant has, the luckier it is. By placing one of these plants outside your front door, you’ll promote great feng shui energy.
- Name: Calamondin Tree (Citrus calamondin)
- Light: Bright light
- Water: Keep soil moist
- Mature Size: Up to 5 feet tall
If you’re looking to add softness to your home or to balance out any strong corners, a fern is a great option. The Boston fern, sometimes called the sword fern, can do well in low-light areas, so it should still be okay even if you don’t have a lot of natural light near your front door.
- Name: Boston Fern (Nephrolepis exaltata)
- Light: Partial shade to bright, indirect light
- Water: Keep soil moist, and water when the top 1 inch of soil is dry
- Mature Size: Up to 3 feet tall
Bring the feeling of love into your home with an orchid. Placing a pink orchid in your foyer will really amplify feelings of camaraderie, partnership, and love. Care for these plants well and you’ll be rewarded with stunning flowers.
- Name: Orchid (Orchidaceae)
- Light: Bright, indirect light
- Water: Keep potting medium moist but not wet
- Mature Size: Up to 3 feet tall