Best Pet-Safe Houseplants That Are Hard to Kill

The problem with every other hard-to-kill list

Take the plants everybody recommends to somebody who kills plants. Snake plant, pothos, peace lily, ZZ. Check them against the ASPCA’s toxic and non-toxic plant list: the snake plant is toxic to dogs and cats, the pothos is toxic to dogs and cats, the peace lily is toxic to dogs and cats, and the ZZ is published as mildly toxic if eaten. Our own hard-to-kill roundup leads with two of them, and says so on each card.

A household with a cat that chews, or a dog that grazes, needs a different list. This is it. Every plant here is on the ASPCA non-toxic list for both cats and dogs, and every one carries its published watering band, because non-toxic and hard-to-kill are different properties and only one of them is a matter of record.

How we ranked them

ASPCA non-toxic first, and it is a hard gate. A plant is on this page only if the ASPCA lists it as non-toxic to both dogs and cats. Non-toxic is not the same as edible - a chewed leaf can still upset a stomach - and out of reach is still the right place for any plant. But it is the line between a vet visit and a chewed leaf.

Published watering band second. Virginia Cooperative Extension gives two bands: once or twice a week for tropical foliage, once or twice a month for succulents. The wider band is the more forgiving plant, and it is a published fact rather than a reputation.

Feedback third. Does the plant show you it is short before the damage is permanent? For an owner who is not sure yet which mistake they make, this matters as much as the band.

Light fourth. The pet-safe survivors split cleanly on this, and the room decides more than the owner does.

First: spider plant

The all-rounder. Non-toxic, communicative, and tougher than its tropical band suggests because the tuberous roots store water against a missed week. It produces plantlets on runners, which is both free plants and the thing cats bat at, so it usually ends up hung - which it likes.

The honest con: brown tips at the first stress, which alarms new owners more than it should; it wants brighter light than the true dim-room plants; and the same tubers that buffer drought rot if it is kept wet.

Second: haworthia

The pet-safe succulent, and the widest safe interval on this page. Aloe and jade, the succulents most people buy, are not on the non-toxic list; Haworthia species are. It sits in the once-or-twice-a-month band, so it is the plant here that survives being forgotten for a month, and it is small enough to live on a sill out of a dog’s reach.

The honest con: it needs real light and stretches pale without it; it rots readily if watered on a tropical schedule; and being slow, a chewed leaf stays chewed. Do not put it in a reservoir pot - it is on the wrong side of that list for the same reason every succulent is.

Third: parlor palm

The pet-safe plant for the room with no light. Non-toxic, tolerant of a north-facing corner where the haworthia would give up, and slow and tidy enough not to be knocked over. It is a genuinely handsome plant, which most of this list is not.

The honest con: it is a tropical-band plant with no water storage to speak of, so it is not a forget-it-for-a-month plant. Brown tips in dry winter air or from fluoridated tap water. Spider mites find it in a heated room. Pet-safe and shade-tolerant, not drought-tolerant.

Fourth: Boston fern, with a warning

It is on this page because it is on the non-toxic list, because it is one of the most-asked-about pet-safe plants, and because leaving it off would be less honest than including it with a label. The label is this: it is the least forgiving plant here. It drops fronds at the first dry spell and wants humidity most houses do not have in winter.

It is also the one plant on this list that a reservoir rescues rather than endangers. In a self-watering pot or a reservoir hanging basket the swing between wet and dry that kills it disappears, and it becomes a reasonable plant for a bathroom. Out of a cat’s reach, naturally, because the fronds are a toy.

Non-toxic is not the whole story

Two cautions the ASPCA list does not make for you. First, non-toxic means the plant itself will not poison the animal; it does not mean a stomach full of leaves is harmless, and any plant should be out of reach of an animal that eats them. Second, what is in the pot matters too - fertilizer in a reservoir, slug pellets on a balcony, a decorative mulch of cocoa shells - and none of that is covered by the plant’s listing.

If a pet has already eaten something, the ASPCA Animal Poison Control line is the number to call, and a plant tag with the botanical name is the thing to have in your hand when you do.

Where to put them, which matters as much as which to buy

Non-toxic is the floor, not the plan. The spider plant and the Boston fern both trail, and both are treated as toys by cats, so they belong hung or on a high shelf - which suits them, since a hanging basket with a reservoir is the best home a fern has. The haworthia is small enough for a sunny sill a dog cannot reach. The parlor palm is the one plant here that can live on the floor: heavy enough not to be knocked over, and boring enough that most animals lose interest after the first sniff. Put the wrong plant on the floor and the ASPCA listing only tells you the vet visit is unlikely, not that the plant survives the cat.

Watering the four, briefly

Three of them are in the tropical band and one is in the succulent band, which means one watering routine will kill something. Check rather than schedule - a finger for small pots, a probe for deep ones - and water each pot when its own mix has dried in the upper root zone. The haworthia will be dry long after the fern has wilted, and that is correct. The cadence reference covers what moves the interval.

The verdict

Spider plant for most pet households: safe, honest, and tougher than its band. Haworthia for the owner who forgets. Parlor palm for the dim room. Boston fern only with a reservoir and out of reach. And whichever you buy, read the botanical name on the tag against the ASPCA list yourself - common names are shared between safe and unsafe plants more often than you would think.