Cast Iron Plant: Tough and low-maintenance

Gardeners are always asking me for low maintenance plants that they can incorporate into their landscapes. Gardening is, after all, hard work, and it can be frustrating to put a lot of effort into plants that struggle or succumb to one ailment or the other. Having at least a few plants in the landscape that you know will be alright whether or not you are able to give them your full attention can make taking care of the rest of them feel just a little less daunting. There are many plants I could recommend as “low maintenance” depending on the situation, but perhaps the most durable plant I know of, whether grown indoors or out, is Aspidistra elatior, the Cast Iron plant.

Now, this perhaps goes without saying, but this plant does not look like cast iron; rather, it got its name because of the fact that it won’t break, bend, rust, rot, wilt, or die under almost any circumstance. It’s just one of the toughest customers in the plant world. It’s definitely not  flashy, but it will survive. The Cast Iron plant grows best in shady spots, the type of garden spots where you might grow hosta, ferns, or solomon’s seal. Growing to a height of 2 feet tall and forming clumps as much as 3 feet wide, it can serve either as a substitute for or complement those other shade-loving perennials.

Upper left: ‘China Stars’ is covered in white speckles across a green background.

Lower left and lower right:  Goldfeather' and ‘Lennon’s Song’ are striped striped cultivar. Photo: C. DeWitt, CC BY 4.0.  Upper right: The spots on the 'Milky Way' cultivars stand out against the green background.

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Leaves emerge directly out of the ground, with 7-12 inch petioles and leaf blades up to 12-18 inches long. They are oval-shaped, and most often solid green. Again, they are not flashy, although there are a few colors with variegated leaf color that are a bit more interesting. These include the cultivars ‘China Stars,’ ‘Milky Way,’ and ‘Well Spotted,’ each of which has dots of white speckled across a green background, and striped cultivars such as the yellow and green ‘Goldfeather’ and ‘Lennon’s Song’ and the green and white ‘Mangetsu’ and ‘Variegata’. The variegated cultivars are a bit more interesting and remind one of the many different variegation patterns of hosta.

While not grown for their flowers, the Cast Iron plant does have some, sort of. They are not typically seen by gardeners, as they occur just at or even below the soil surface, often hidden by dense foliage, mulch, and top soil. The clever horticulturist Tony Avent says they are “best appreciated by moles” due to their location. They bloom sporadically, usually in early summer, and the flowers are actually pretty interesting to behold, as they are a cup-shaped inflorescence with 7-20 petals, ranging from cream-colored to purple. Flowers will occur with a little more frequency in higher light environments, although the foliage may burn a bit in these types of settings, so it's usually best to grow this plant in the shade. Cast Iron plant is commonly used as a houseplant, and also thrives in low-light environments indoors.

Matthew Stevens is the County Extension Director and Horticulture Agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension’s Pitt County Center. If you have questions about this article or gardening in general, please contact the Pitt County Extension Master Gardener Infoline on Tuesday and Thursday mornings from 10 am to 12 noon at 252-902-1705.