What should a plant care card include?

At minimum, the plant's name, light needs, how dry to let the soil get, humidity, and whether it's toxic to pets. This card shows all of these plus a short care note.

The card is generated from the site's plant list and isn't editable on screen. You can write extra notes by hand after printing, such as "last watered" or "rotate weekly".

Where does the toxicity information come from?

From the ASPCA Toxic and Non-Toxic Plants list for cats and dogs. ZZ plant is marked toxic because it contains calcium oxalate crystals.

Printable Plant Care Card

Quick answer

Choose a plant from the list. The card updates with that plant's light, watering style, humidity, ASPCA pet toxicity and difficulty, plus a one-line care note. Press Print card. The site's header, footer and article text are hidden when printing, so only the card comes out.

Who it's for

Plant sitters. Leave a card next to each plant when you travel, so the person watering knows which plants like to dry out and which need steady moisture.
Gifts. A care card tucked into a gifted plant answers the first questions the new owner will ask.
Your own shelf. If you have many plants, a small card on each one saves looking things up.
Offices. Shared plants often get overwatered by kind colleagues. A card that says "let dry out fully" helps.

How to read the card

Field	What it means
Light	The light levels the plant tolerates: low, medium and/or bright. The first listed isn't necessarily the best. Many plants tolerate low light but grow faster in medium.
Water	"Let dry out" means water only when the soil is dry all the way through. "Dry top few cm" means water when the top 2–5 cm are dry. "Keep lightly moist" means don't let it dry out completely, but avoid soggy soil.
Humidity	"Average" plants cope with normal room air. "High" plants, like many ferns, appreciate a humid bathroom, a pebble tray or grouping with other plants.
Pets (ASPCA)	Whether the ASPCA lists the plant as toxic to cats and dogs.
Difficulty	A rough guide, from easy (forgiving) to fussy (sensitive to change).

Tips for plant sitters

Write these on the back of the card:

Check before watering. Push a finger into the soil. If it's still damp, don't water.
Water thoroughly when you do water, then empty the saucer.
Don't move plants to new spots while the owner is away.
Know the emergency contact. If a pet chews a toxic plant, call the vet straight away.

Printing tips

Use your browser's print preview to scale the card. "Fit to page" or 50% works well for small cards.
Print on card stock for durability, or laminate the card if it'll sit near watering cans.
For a set, print one card per plant and cut them out.

Plants available

The card covers the same 22 plants as the watering schedule builder and low-light plant finder. These include monstera, golden pothos, snake plant, ZZ plant, peace lily, spider plant, Boston fern, prayer plant, rubber plant, fiddle leaf fig and several succulents.

Limits

A card is a summary. For a full routine, including soil, feeding, repotting, propagation and problem-solving, read the plant guides, such as the monstera care guide and pothos care guide.

Every card at a glance

This is what the card shows for each of the 22 plants. It's useful for comparing plants before you buy, or for checking which of your plants share a watering style.

Plant	Latin name	Light	Water	Humidity	Pets (ASPCA)	Difficulty
Snake plant	Dracaena trifasciata	low / medium / bright	Let dry out	average	Toxic	easy
ZZ plant	Zamioculcas zamiifolia	low / medium	Let dry out	average	Toxic	easy
Golden pothos	Epipremnum aureum	low / medium / bright	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	easy
Heartleaf philodendron	Philodendron hederaceum	low / medium	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	easy
Cast iron plant	Aspidistra elatior	low / medium	Dry top few cm	average	Non-toxic	easy
Parlor palm	Chamaedorea elegans	low / medium	Dry top few cm	average	Non-toxic	easy
Spider plant	Chlorophytum comosum	medium / bright	Dry top few cm	average	Non-toxic	easy
Boston fern	Nephrolepis exaltata	medium	Keep lightly moist	high	Non-toxic	moderate
Peace lily	Spathiphyllum spp.	low / medium	Keep lightly moist	average	Toxic	easy
Chinese evergreen	Aglaonema spp.	low / medium	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	easy
Prayer plant	Maranta leuconeura	medium	Keep lightly moist	high	Non-toxic	moderate
Monstera	Monstera deliciosa	medium / bright	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	easy
Rubber plant	Ficus elastica	medium / bright	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	moderate
Baby rubber plant	Peperomia obtusifolia	medium / bright	Let dry out	average	Non-toxic	easy
Bird's nest fern	Asplenium nidus	low / medium	Keep lightly moist	high	Non-toxic	moderate
Haworthia	Haworthiopsis spp.	medium / bright	Let dry out	average	Non-toxic	easy
Aloe vera	Aloe vera	bright	Let dry out	average	Toxic	easy
Fiddle leaf fig	Ficus lyrata	bright	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	fussy
Dragon tree	Dracaena marginata	medium / bright	Let dry out	average	Toxic	easy
Ponytail palm	Beaucarnea recurvata	bright	Let dry out	average	Non-toxic	easy
African violet	Streptocarpus sect. Saintpaulia	medium	Dry top few cm	average	Non-toxic	moderate
English ivy	Hedera helix	medium / bright	Dry top few cm	average	Toxic	moderate

Grouping plants by watering style

The "Water" line is the most useful part of the card for a plant sitter. Group your plants by it:

Let dry out: snake plant, ZZ plant, baby rubber plant, haworthia, aloe vera, dragon tree, ponytail palm. Water these rarely, only when the soil is dry right through.
Dry top few cm: golden pothos, heartleaf philodendron, cast iron plant, parlor palm, spider plant, Chinese evergreen, monstera, rubber plant, fiddle leaf fig, African violet, English ivy. Water when the top 2–5 cm are dry.
Keep lightly moist: Boston fern, peace lily, prayer plant, bird's nest fern. Check these most often.

Put each group's cards together, or colour-code them, and the sitter has a simple system: check the "moist" group every few days, the middle group weekly and the "dry" group only once or twice a fortnight. The watering schedule builder gives exact starting intervals for each plant.

Worked example: a card for a plant sitter

You're away for ten days. You have a peace lily, a pothos and a snake plant.

Choose Peace lily. The card reads: Light "low / medium", Water "Keep lightly moist", Humidity "average", Pets "Toxic", Difficulty "easy", and the note "Droops visibly when thirsty, recovers after watering." Print it.
Choose Golden pothos. Light "low / medium / bright", Water "Dry top few cm", Pets "Toxic", note "Grows slower and less variegated in low light." Print it.
Choose Snake plant. Water "Let dry out", note "Tolerates low light and missed waterings; rots if kept wet." Print it.

On the back of the snake plant card, write "Don't water while I'm away" if you watered it just before you left. Ten days is well within its usual interval. That single line prevents the most common plant-sitting accident: a well-meaning sitter drowning a snake plant.

Pet-safe plants on the list

Ten of the 22 plants are listed as non-toxic to cats and dogs by the ASPCA: cast iron plant, parlor palm, spider plant, Boston fern, prayer plant, baby rubber plant, bird's nest fern, haworthia, ponytail palm and African violet. All ten show "Non-toxic" on their cards. The other 12 show "Toxic". For low-light, pet-safe choices, see low light plants safe for cats.

Making a card set for a new plant owner

Giving a plant as a gift? A card answers the first questions. A good bundle:

The printed care card
A note on when you last watered it
A link to the full guide for that plant, such as snake plant care, ZZ plant care, spider plant care or peace lily care
A reminder that the pot needs a drainage hole

Why the card is short on purpose

A card that tried to cover everything wouldn't fit on a pot or a fridge. The card sticks to what matters day to day: where to put the plant, how to water it, how much humidity it likes, whether pets can be near it, and how forgiving it is. Soil, feeding, repotting and pests change rarely, and they're covered in the guides. If something on the card doesn't match what you see, trust the plant: the how to care for houseplants guide explains how to read the signs.

Accessibility and printing

The card is plain text in a simple layout, so screen readers read it in order: plant name, Latin name, then each field and value. When printing, the browser hides the site's header, footer and navigation, so only the card and its fields appear. If your printer adds headers and footers with the page address, turn them off in the print dialog for a cleaner card.

How the card's fields are decided

Each plant in the tool has a fixed set of values, and the card simply displays them. The values come from widely shared care guidance and the ASPCA toxicity list:

Light lists every level the plant tolerates, in the order low, medium, bright. A plant with "low / medium" will survive in a dim spot but grows better in medium light.
Water comes from the plant's soil preference: "dry" becomes "Let dry out", "moderate" becomes "Dry top few cm" and "moist" becomes "Keep lightly moist".
Humidity is "average" or "high". Only Boston fern, prayer plant and bird's nest fern are rated "high" in the current list.
Pets (ASPCA) is "Non-toxic" or "Toxic". ZZ plant is marked toxic because it contains calcium oxalate crystals like other aroids.
Difficulty is "easy", "moderate" or "fussy". Only fiddle leaf fig is rated fussy.

Because the card and the other tools share the same data, a plant's card always agrees with its result in the watering schedule builder and low-light plant finder.

Ideas for using the cards

Label your shelf. Print several cards at a small scale and tape them to the front of a shelf below each plant.
Make a plant binder. Keep a card for every plant in a folder, with notes on when you repotted or treated pests.
Teach children. A card with a picture drawn on the back helps children learn which plant needs what, and which ones not to touch.
Label office plants. A card that says "Let dry out" on a ZZ plant saves it from enthusiastic colleagues. See plants for an office with no windows.
Plant swaps. If you give away cuttings, such as rooted pothos from our propagating pothos in water guide, add a card.

What to add by hand

The card leaves space for your own notes. Useful additions:

The date you last watered and the date you last fed
The pot size, so you know when the next repot is due. The repotting pot size calculator suggests the next size.
Where the plant came from and when
Any quirks you've noticed, like "drops a leaf every winter" or "leans towards the window, turn monthly"

Troubleshooting printing

The card prints with the whole page. Use print preview and check you're printing from the tool page itself. The site's print styles hide everything except the card.
The card is too large. Set the scale to 50–70% in the print dialog.
Colours are faint. The card uses dark text on a light background and prints well in black and white. Turn off "economy" or "draft" mode for crisper text.
You need a PDF. Choose "Save as PDF" as the printer in your browser's print dialog.