An east sill gives a heartleaf philodendron 67 out of 100 at 22 °C and 50% humidity. The light there, an estimated 6,500 lux, reads a bit bright. The flag holds almost to the one-metre mark, then lets go: at one metre, on 5,000 lux, it scores 99, and 99 or 100 from there to five metres.
Read on 14 October 2026, the top results for this search are east-window plant lists, and they agree. Gardening Know How describes gentle morning sun, then bright indirect light. A 2016 Houzz list calls morning sun weaker and briefer than southern or western sun, so less likely to burn, and offers a sheer or a step back if it’s too strong. Savvy Gardening calls that morning sun “perfect” for a heartleaf. None gives a distance. Only a 2009 forum thread expects the spot to change: a reply on a tree philodendron in a sunny east window warns that summer sun is stronger and it may need moving.
Our numbers side with that reply: the sill is flagged most of the year, and the month decides how far the flag reaches.
Worth a try
It can work here with a little care.
A bit bright, but workable
Comfortable temperature
Humidity suits it
Airflow suits it
Is morning sun too strong for a philodendron on an east sill?
A little, and only the light. Warmth, humidity and airflow all sit inside their bands on the card above; the light alone is marked a bit bright but workable, which is why the card says worth a try instead of failing the spot. What we didn’t expect is how little east and west differ at the glass. A west sill puts nearly the same flag on the same plant, harsh afternoon and all. The gentler morning shows up a metre into the room, where an east window has already cleared and a west one hasn’t. A south window keeps it flagged until about three metres back.
Other people publish light figures for a philodendron too, in whatever unit each source chose:
| Who publishes it | What it says a philodendron needs | What the figure is |
|---|---|---|
| theplantrunner.com | 800–2,000+ lux | Standard foliage plants (pothos, Philodendron, Monstera deliciosa …) — a general band, not a single-species figure |
| theplantrunner.com | 1,500–5,000 lux | Light-hungry aroids & Ficus divas (Fiddle Leaf Fig, variegated Monstera) |
| houseplantjournal.com | 100 foot-candles | Philodendron Vines — minimum indirect light |
| houseplantjournal.com | 200 foot-candles | Philodendron Vines — good indirect light |
| growlightmeter.com | 5 – 10 PPFD / DLI | Philodendron |
| extension.arizona.edu | 75–150 foot-candles | listed under the heading "Medium Light (75–150 fc)"; carries the page' |
| houseplantsnook.com | 50–100 foot-candles | chart fc level |
| houseplantsnook.com | 200–400 foot-candles | chart fc level |
Every one of those is given once, for the whole year, and the window it gets read against doesn’t hold still. One metre from an east window at latitude 40, our estimate runs from 2,917 lux in December to 6,000 in June. A figure with no month attached can’t say which of the two it means. Our own scoring has the same blind spot until it’s given a date, which is why the next table has no date and the one after it has six.
How far from an east window should a philodendron sit?
On a clear day with no season applied, one metre. The same plant at six spots in one east room, nothing else changed:
| Distance from the glass | Estimated light | What the light is doing | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| 0.3 m, against the glass | 6,500 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 67/100 |
| 0.5 m back | 6,300 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 68/100 |
| 0.9 m back | 5,236 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 69/100 |
| 1 m back | 5,000 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 99/100 |
| 1.5 m back | 3,969 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
| 5 m back | 787 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 99/100 |
The flag doesn’t fade as you back away. The score sits at 67 to 69 for the first nine-tenths of a metre, then goes from 69 to 99 across the next ten centimetres, where the estimate slips from 5,236 to 5,000 lux. A real plant won’t feel ten centimetres. The sharp edge belongs to the scoring, which draws its line at one light level, and your window will put that level at a slightly different distance. What carries over is that easing the pot a hand’s width off the glass changes nothing until it crosses the line.
Past the line the room is wide open. Five metres in, on 787 lux, it still scores 99. A golden pothos gets exactly these scores at every distance in this window, and the pothos page sets east and west lux side by side for the first three metres.
Does the right distance change with the season?
Yes, and the one metre from that table is where it changes most. The same spot, scored on the 21st of six months at latitude 40:
| The month it is | Estimated light | What the light is doing | Verdict |
|---|---|---|---|
| March | 4,970 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 99/100 |
| April | 5,740 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 68/100 |
| June | 6,000 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 68/100 |
| August | 5,750 lux | A bit bright, but workable | Worth a try, 68/100 |
| September | 4,985 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 99/100 |
| December | 2,917 lux | Just the right amount of light | Great fit, 100/100 |
One metre is a great fit in March, worth a try from April to August, and a great fit again from September; by December the estimate is down to 2,917 lux. The flagged months are the long-day ones, with the estimate between 5,740 and 6,000 lux. We ran the same spot at latitudes 30 and 50, and the same five months came out flagged.
So for this plant the 2009 reply holds up. In summer the line sits between one metre and one and a half. One and a half metres reads a great fit in every month at 30, 40 and 50 degrees, which makes it the distance you can set once and leave.
Winter runs the other way. At latitude 40 the sill itself reads a great fit from November to January, the same three months the west sill gets. At 30 degrees the east sill keeps them, where the west one never clears. Bring the pot to the glass only if the air there stays warm: with December’s light held still, 18 °C drops the sill back to worth a try.
Will a light meter tell you where the line is?
For the day you take the reading, yes. The label on its own won’t. The meter files everything from 2,500 lux to just under 10,000 as bright, indirect, the phrase the east-window lists lean on, and every row of the first table from the sill to one and a half metres sits under it, the flagged rows and the great fits alike. The number is what places the pot. Then measure again a few weeks into spring: the month table has the same metre clearing in March and over the line by April.
None of the lux figures on this page came off a meter. They’re estimates from the window’s direction, the distance and a clear day.
What else moves the line in your window?
Anything that takes light off the sill pulls the line toward the glass: a tree, an awning, the next building over. None of them is an input here, and behind enough of them an east sill may already sit inside the band. The east window guide covers how close to the glass other plants need to be, and the free spot checker scores the spot you actually have.
Published October 14, 2026
