Plants for Small Terrariums: Our Picks for Beginners

One question comes up more than almost any other, whether it's in the shop's inbox or from people just starting a terrarium for the first time: what actually stays small enough to work in a compact enclosure without taking it over in a few months? A lot of plants get sold as "terrarium plants" simply because they like humidity, but humidity tolerance and small footprint are two different things. Plenty of humidity-loving aroids and ferns in this catalog will happily fill a 20-gallon tank within a year if you let them.

This list is narrower than that. Everything below was chosen because it stays genuinely compact, tolerates the lower light most small enclosures get, and is a reasonable plant to learn on. Nothing here demands the kind of humidity precision or fussy substrate that turns a first terrarium into a frustration. I've also kept the price point low on purpose. A small terrarium is usually someone's first one, and there's no reason the entry cost should be high while you're still figuring out what your setup actually needs.

Each name below links to the current in-stock selection for that genus, rather than one specific listing, so the link stays useful even after a particular cutting sells out.

Vining cuttings for the walls and floor

Small terrariums live or die on vertical space. These root fast from a cutting, stay low and creeping rather than climbing aggressively, and are the easiest plants on this list to establish.

• Peperomia 'fuzzy mystery' — about as forgiving as terrarium plants get, and the cheapest way to fill in bare substrate fast.
• Peperomia orba — thick, succulent-like leaves that hold up well even if you're inconsistent with misting early on.
• Peperomia glabella — trailing habit, stays low, roots readily along the stem.
• Ficus thunbergii (syn. quercifolia, "string of frogs") — tiny leaves and a creeping habit that reads as ground cover rather than a vine if kept trimmed.
• Ficus vaccinioides — one of the smallest-leaved figs in the catalog, which matters a lot at terrarium scale.
• Ficus pumila variegated — a shingling grower when young, pressing flat against glass or bark rather than reaching outward, which is exactly the growth habit you want in a small footprint.

Groundcover and moss-adjacent

Every small terrarium needs something to knit the substrate together at the floor level. These spread laterally instead of upward, which is the habit you want low in the enclosure.

• cf. Antrophyum (moss-type growth) — reads almost like moss rather than a fern, useful if you want texture at the base without anything that'll ever need pruning for height.

Rosettes that stay put

Rosette-forming plants are useful in small terrariums specifically because they grow outward from a fixed center instead of trailing or climbing, so the footprint is predictable and easy to plan around.

• Neoregelia 'Oregon' — compact rosette size and good color response to the brighter end of typical terrarium lighting.
• Neoregelia cv. Fireball — deep red coloration under bright light, one of the smallest-growing cultivars we carry.
• Neoregelia cv. Mo Peppa Please — variegated foliage on the same compact rosette habit as the rest of the genus.
• Neoregelia cv. Zoe — patterned foliage, same small footprint typical of this genus.
• Neoregelia cv. Wild Tiger — bold striped pattern, stays just as compact as the others.

Small aroids

Aroids are the group most likely to outgrow a small enclosure. Most of what's in this catalog is juvenile-stage cuttings of species that get considerably larger with age or a moss pole to climb. These specific selections are the ones that stay reasonable without one.

• Philodendron sp. Costa Rica — slow, compact grower well suited to staying in the juvenile leaf form for a long time in a terrarium's lower light.
• Philodendron sp. peach tunnel — same reasoning as above, a compact grower that rewards patience over a moss pole.
• Syngonium rayii — smaller-statured than most Syngonium sold as houseplants, and tolerant of the lower light most closed setups run.
• Syngonium wendlandii — velvety leaf texture that reads well up close, which matters more in a small enclosure viewed at short range than in a houseplant across a room.
• Scindapsus sp. tricolor tombak — root-climbing habit means it'll stay close to whatever surface you give it rather than reaching across open space.

Ferns

Most ferns in the catalog are epiphytic species that expect to be mounted rather than potted, and stay considerably smaller as a result. A fern given a pot of substrate to fill will do exactly that, which isn't what you want at this scale.

• Microsorum linguiforme — strap-leaf, rhizomatous habit that grows outward along a mount rather than upward.
• Microsorum sp. timika — similar growth habit to the above with different leaf form, good if you want textural variety without changing the care approach.

A step up once the basics are working

These two are labeled a little more involved in our own care notes, but they're standard fixtures in almost every small terrarium build once someone's past their first few months. Leaving them off a list like this would be an omission.

• Selaginella kraussiana wild type — spreads into a dense moss-like mat given consistent moisture. It wants more attention to humidity than the plants above, but it's a lycophyte, not a true moss, and considerably more forgiving than one.
• Begonia prismatocarpa — one of the smallest rhizomatous Begonia species we carry, staying low and clumping rather than reaching for height.

A couple more worth knowing about

Two less common picks if the above list leaves you wanting something different:

• Pilea sp. chartreuse Ecuador — bright foliage color that holds up under the lower light of an enclosure better than most variegated options do.
• Gymnostachyum sp. Borneo — rosette-forming Acanthaceae with genuine understory-humidity requirements, a good next plant once a first terrarium is stable.

If you want to browse beyond this list, our full terrarium-suited, in-stock selection stays current automatically as inventory changes. This article is a curated starting point; that collection view is the complete, live picture.