Anisotropic nature of plant fiber and various plant fiber-correlated porosities are the major setbacks in evaluating the elastic constants of plant fiber-reinforced polymer composites theoretically. An attempt is made here to get rid of those setbacks and focuses toward the evaluation of accurate elastic constants of composites. In this work, mechanical characteristics such as tensile, flexure, and shear characteristics of woven jute/epoxy and woven aloe/epoxy composites are determined. The experimentally measured elastic constants of composites are further used to find the elastic anisotropy of the jute and aloe fibers using the proposed model which is a combined model of Halpin-Tsai equations and laminate analogy approach with the inclusion of porosity correction factor. Using the theoretically predicted elastic properties of fiber, the elastic constants of the tapered laminated woven jute/epoxy and woven aloe/epoxy composites are evaluated using the proposed model. © The Author(s) 2017.