I love houseplants!! Usually I love them to death including aloes and air plants.The last 2-3 years though, I have kept more alive than I’ve killed. Yay! Overwatering is a big culprit, but some also die from drying out. I have a hard time with my house fluctuating between being cold then really hot and dry with the wood stove.
Some of the plants that are super resistant to me killing them are:
-Peace Lily- this plant likes low light and regular water (1x week) and it will flower. If more neglected it will stop flowering. When really thirsty it will droop, but as soon as you water, it will perk right back just fine. Very forgiving and communicative plant.
-Wondering Jew- this plant is a survivor. It just wants to grow and grow. Also doesn’t care what kind of light it’s in. I think the more you water the more it grows. It will grow even in totality dry soil and will start to look sad, but will bounce right back. Grows super fast and long and roots from any node, so cut the ends 6”, remove lower leaves from cutting and stick in water until rooted. New plants!! Also great way to start your own.
-Dracaen-(corn plant) another low light powerhouse that I can overwater or underwater and seems just fine. This plant has gotten huge really quickly and doesn’t seem to care about its pot size.
These plants are a bit more finicky about too much water but can survive low light and under watering quite well.
-Pothos- are low light tolerant and forgiving. They like to suck up air moisture and my mother has one in her bathroom, with a window, that only lives on shower steam. Mine gets the dry wood stove heat and does just fine with occasional water. It will wilt when it needs more water and bounces back nicely.
- Christmas Cactus- does great with low light and neglect! Will get droopy when dry, doesn’t like a lot of water but I still haven’t killed it yet. Mine put on a beautiful pink show for Thanksgiving.
I have several other plants, not sure how easy they’d be, however they are surviving me so far… I don’t know everyone’s names though.
Some final thoughts are to give each plant a size appropriate dish/bowl/pie plate under its pot and make sure the pot has a way for water to drain out the bottom. I find a lot of my plants like to completely dry out before watering and the soil doesn’t hold onto any of the water when dry, so the dish allows some water to stay and seep back into the pot.
I wanted houseplants so badly but big ones are really expensive. I got a few of the plants that I liked that were babies in little 2”-4” pots. Waaaay cheaper. I took them home and potted them up into way bigger pots and in a year they were the size of the expensive plants, so don’t pay for the big boys, your plants will get big fast if you give them more room.
I was also given a basket (no drainage) crowded with 7-10 plants. I individually potted up each one. I lost a couple but I have a lot of plants from that, if you can find something similar at a good price it might be worth it.
After I got going with a few, I wanted more, so I started looking around and I found on Etsy there are several people who will send you a box with a bunch of different plant cuttings. You have to get them established and pot them up yourself, but very inexpensive way to get several plants. Full disclosure, I didn’t order any…yet.
So the takeaway is plants are resilient and want to grow… even houseplants! Most propagate easily so with a little time, patience, and forgiveness of our own human shortcomings we can soon have many little plant friends. Then we get to share them with others! (Can you smell the side hustle!)
I am very grateful to my houseplants for bringing such joy with something growing inside when outside is wrapped in winter and we long for our gardens.
I wish you good health with your plant friends Raven!
