If your plant collection is starting to feel like a sea of green, it might be time to add something with real color. Two plants worth a look are the blue star fern, with its soft, blue-gray fronds, and echeveria, a rosette succulent that comes in shades of blue, pink, and lavender depending on the variety.
Both are genuinely easy to grow once you get the light right, and it turns out they have more in common than you'd expect. Neither one is a low-light plant. This post covers what each actually needs, and why a single Aspect™ Gen 2 can be set up to handle both, help them thrive, and keep their colors vibrant!
TL;DR: Lighting Two Colorful Collection Plants
Blue star fern and echeveria are two easy ways to add color and texture to a growing plant collection.
Both are bright-light plants, just at different intensities: echeveria wants the strongest light of the two, while blue star fern wants bright indirect light without direct sun.
The Aspect™ Gen 2 is the perfect grow light for both plants, since it dims from 10 to 100 percent and adjusts anywhere from 12 to 72 inches away.
Quick Reference: Lighting Both Plants With One Fixture
| Plant | Light Need | Aspect™ Gen 2 Distance and Setting | Watch For |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blue Star Fern | Bright indirect light, no direct sun | 36 to 48 inches away, mid-range dimming | Sparse, reaching new fronds mean it needs to move closer |
| Echeveria | High, direct-equivalent light | 12 to 24 inches away, higher dimming setting | Stretching or pale color mean it needs more light |
Blue Star Fern: A Soft, Textural Addition to Your Collection
Blue star fern (Phlebodium aureum) is an epiphytic fern with wavy, blue-gray fronds and thick, fuzzy rhizomes that creep along the surface of the soil. It's a different texture and color than most collections lean toward, which is exactly why it's been showing up more often as a pick for people looking to diversify beyond typical green foliage.
What Light Does a Blue Star Fern Actually Need?
This is a plant that gets mistaken for a low-light fern, but it isn't one. Blue star ferns want real brightness, just not unfiltered sun. To understand what this means, University of Florida IFAS Extension draws a useful line here: describing a fern next to a succulent, it notes that "the fern...would burn under such intense light" that a succulent needs, which is a good reminder that bright indirect and full direct sun are not the same thing.
In practice, that means the brightest spot in a room that never gets direct sun on the leaves. Too little light shows up as sparse, reaching new fronds instead of the fuller, more compact growth this fern is known for.
Echeveria: A Rosette Full of Color
Echeveria is a rosette-forming succulent native to Mexico and Central America, and it's an easy one to get hooked on. Depending on the variety, the coloring runs from powdery blue to dusty pink to deep lavender, and that coloring is directly tied to how much light it gets.
What Light Does Echeveria Need to Keep Its Color?
Soltech's own Echeveria Plant Guide puts it plainly: Echeveria requires a lot of sun to maintain its compact, vibrant rosette shape and thrives on at least 4-6 hours of direct sunlight per day. When it doesn't get enough, insufficient light will cause the plant to stretch out (etiolate) and become pale, losing the tight, colorful rosette shape that makes it worth growing in the first place.
North Carolina State University Extension backs this up, classifying Echeveria as a "Full sun (6 or more hours of direct sunlight a day)" plant, or "Partial Shade" at minimum with 2 to 6 hours of direct sunlight. Its guidance on color is just as direct: "the color is better in full sun."
Of the two plants in this post, echeveria is the one that needs the most light. It's also one of the few succulents that rewards you visually for getting it right, since the color intensifies along with the light.
Why the Aspect™ Gen 2 Works for These Colorful Plants
Normally, pairing a fern with a succulent means running two different lights at two different intensities. However, the Aspect™ Gen 2 is flexible enough to skip that. It dims from 10 to 100 percent and mounts anywhere from 12 to 72 inches from a plant, so the same fixture can be set up two different ways depending on which plant is underneath it.
The Aspect™ Gen 2 is a versatile, full-spectrum pendant that can be dimmed to suit your plant's needs. It can be mounted on a wall, suspended from the ceiling, or paired with the Stello™ Pendant Stand as a renter-friendly option.
For echeveria, that means hanging it toward the closer end of its range, roughly 12 to 24 inches away, with the dimmer turned up to deliver the strongest light it can put out. For blue star fern, moving it back to around 36 to 48 inches, or dialing the dimmer down at a closer distance, brings the intensity down to bright indirect without direct, concentrated light hitting the fronds.
If both plants end up sharing a shelf or a plant stand, the practical fix is to give echeveria the spot closest to the light and let blue star fern sit slightly further from center, where the light naturally softens.
Blue Star Fern and Echeveria: Two Colorful Plants to Add to Your Collection
Blue star fern and echeveria are proof that a colorful plant collection doesn't have to mean a complicated one. Both want brighter light than most people assume, just at different intensities, and one Aspect™ Gen 2 can be adjusted to give each of them exactly what it needs.
Looking for more plants to add to your collection? Our Plant Guide covers light, water, and care details for a growing library of houseplants, so you can find your next pick and know exactly how to light it before it comes home.
