On a north sill, a green Chinese evergreen scores 100 out of 100, and walked two metres into the room it hasn’t lost a point. That’s at 22 °C, 50% humidity and the gentle air its care data asks for. The pink ‘Lady Valentine’ keeps pace at those two metres. ‘Red Valentine’ and ‘Red Anjamani’ don’t: both fall to 65 there, and what gets flagged is their light.
Read on 14 October 2026, the answer box at the top of Google’s results says a Chinese evergreen will manage at a north window but grow slower and leggier, and steers you toward green or silver types because pinks and reds fade there. The pages under it all accept north, then argue over how good it is. BabaBerry calls it ideal for green and silver types and sends the pinks to an east window. JOMO Studio lists a spot beside north glass both as ideal and among the dimmest the plant can handle. Folia Collective expects pinks to fade there; GrowHub, a UAE shop, says a pink one usually takes north light well.
Great fit
This plant should be happy in this spot.
Just the right amount of light
Comfortable temperature
Humidity suits it
Airflow suits it
Our scoring sides with BabaBerry on the green plant. On the pinks it draws a line that leaf colour doesn’t predict, and which side a plant falls on decides how far from the glass it can sit.
Is a north window enough light for a Chinese evergreen?
The published figures first, copied as written, units and all:
| Who publishes it | What it says a Chinese evergreen needs | What the figure is |
|---|---|---|
| getgrowli.app | 500–800 lux | The floor it gives: what the plant survives on in a north room or dim corner (its Low Light tier) |
| getgrowli.app | 1,500–4,000 lux | Where it says the plant does noticeably better; Growli prints this same band for every plant in its medium indirect tier |
| getgrowli.app | ~50–75 fc; 150–400 fc foot-candles | Its foot-candle figures: survives down to the first, grows well at the second |
| foliage-factory.com | approx. 5,000–10,000 lux | Product page for Aglaonema commutatum, listed as medium indirect light |
| edis.ifas.ufl.edu | 3,000 to 1,250 foot candles | UF/IFAS EP160: commercial production under 75% to 90% shade, a nursery figure rather than a home one |
| edis.ifas.ufl.edu | 25 foot candles | UF/IFAS EP160: the lowest light level it says the plant can tolerate |
| extension.illinois.edu | 75 foot candles | A tier value: the page lists Chinese evergreen as low light and gives that tier one figure |
Growli writes its survival figure for a north room or a dim corner, which files north down at the floor. Read the rest of the table and the same plant gets a band of 5,000 to 10,000 lux from one seller and a tolerance of 25 foot candles from a university extension. A reader could come away thinking north is either a squeeze or a waste.
For the green species it’s plenty. Our care data puts it in the low-light band, and a north sill, estimated at 3,640 lux, sits inside that band with room to spare on both sides. It also falls inside the 1,500 to 4,000 lux where Growli says the plant does noticeably better. Our lux figures are estimates from the window’s direction, the distance and a clear day, not meter readings. Carry the same pot to the other three sills and the verdict turns over:
| The sill it sits on | Estimated light | What the light is doing | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| North window | 3,640 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| East window | 6,500 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 67/100 |
| West window | 7,800 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 66/100 |
| South window | 13,000 lux | Too bright here | Not the best fit right now, 45/100 |
Only the north sill reads a great fit. East and west both come back worth a try, with the light marked a bit bright, and south drops to 45. So the spot JOMO lists near the bottom of what this plant can handle is, on our numbers, the one sill it suits. Foliage Factory’s band, the only row in the published table written for A. commutatum by name, takes in the east and west sills and doesn’t reach down to the north one.
In an east or west room the pot just starts further in, and the west-window page for a Chinese evergreen works out how far.
How far from a north window can a Chinese evergreen go?
Further than any page we read suggests. On a clear day the green type holds a great fit from the sill to six metres back, so a distance table here would print one verdict six times. Folia Collective’s north-window page warns that three feet back can decide whether a plant thrives. For this one, three feet is barely off the sill.
Should pink and red Chinese evergreens avoid a north window?
Some should, and the leaves won’t tell you which. Six of them, one spot, two metres from north glass:
| Chinese evergreen | What the light is doing | Verdict |
|---|---|---|
| Chinese evergreen (A. commutatum), green and silver | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| ‘Silver Bay’, silver and green | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| ‘Lady Valentine’, pink | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| ‘Siam Aurora’, red edges | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| ‘Red Valentine’, pink and red | A little dim, but workable | Worth a try, 65/100 |
| ‘Red Anjamani’, red | A little dim, but workable | Worth a try, 65/100 |
The top four keep the full score. ‘Lady Valentine’ has mostly pink leaves and ‘Siam Aurora’ is edged in red, yet our care data files both in the same low-light band as the green species. ‘Red Valentine’ and ‘Red Anjamani’ sit one band higher, so at two metres their light reads a little dim and the verdict falls to worth a try.
Those two still hold a great fit on the sill and out to about a metre and a half. So the useful rule is narrower than keeping pinks out of north rooms. Check the name on the tag: a higher-band type stays within a metre and a half of the glass, and one in the green species’ band can go as deep as the green one.
Their care data also asks for more air movement than the light setting this table holds, which costs them a few points. Rescored at medium, their two-metre verdict is the same.
Our score has no input for leaf colour, so whether a pink actually pales in a north room, as Folia says, stays untested here.
What does winter change at a north window?
For the green type, not much. At latitude 51, roughly London, three and a half metres back still holds a great fit in December; four metres slips to worth a try from November to January.
The higher-band types feel it sooner. They share a light band with the Pink Princess philodendron, and its page walks that band through a north-sill winter. A ‘Red Valentine’ gets the same verdicts: at London’s latitude even the sill slips to worth a try from November to January, while an east or west sill still rates it a great fit.
Cold air at the glass is the other winter change, and this plant loses its great fit between 19 and 18 °C, the same step a pothos takes on a cooling north sill.
Which Chinese evergreen should get the north sill?
If you grow both kinds, give it to the higher-band one; the green species gives up nothing two metres back. These numbers assume an unobstructed window on a clear day, and a building across the street or a balcony overhead takes off light the score never sees. The north window guide has what else holds two metres in, and the free spot checker scores your own spot with the weather where you live.
Published October 14, 2026
