Houseplants that I can't kill

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#3122178 31-Aug-2023 12:05

tdgeek:

mattwnz:

The reason why many people kill house plants is because they over water them and the roots rot. They may already be damaged when you buy them from a garden centre as they can also overwater them. Lack of light is also an issue. Yuccas are pretty hardly and can survive a long time without water and I have one I got 20 years ago and keep chopping it up can creating new plants. The health benefits are mainly due to ambience. They are said to 'clean the air' and although they do produce oxygen, you would need a lot of plants to make much difference IMO to air quality.

100%. Best to water from the tray the pot sits in, so it can wick up. Dont be over zealous with water as the simple fix it, for the exact reasons you stated.

Now, if the soil mix was clearly dry, I would pop the pot in the kitchen sink and fill the sink with water so the pot is saturated, soil moisture sorted, allow the pot to drain the saturation away in the sink then put back on the tray. A little water in the tray once a week if needed. Diffuse light not direct (but Google the plant to check that as that can vary)

I use this method of putting the smaller plants in the kitchen sink full of water and when all bubbles cease to come up, let it drain and place back where it was.
I normally water the larger house plants every week during summer and maybe every 10 days in the winter. Not for the smaller plants though as they need more frequent watering.
The soil needs to be dry for about 2-3 cms when you place your fingers
A little liquid fertiliser every 2 months and they seem to thrive. Dappled light is best.

I recommend start with a devil's ivy as a starter plant. They are pretty robust or a ZZ plant.

tdgeek

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#3122179 31-Aug-2023 12:08

qwertee:

I use this method of putting the smaller plants in the kitchen sink full of water and when all bubbles cease to come up, let it drain and place back where it was.
I normally water the larger house plants every week during summer and maybe every 10 days in the winter. Not for the smaller plants though as they need more frequent watering.
The soil needs to be dry for about 2-3 cms when you place your fingers
A little liquid fertiliser every 2 months and they seem to thrive. Dappled light is best.

I recommend start with a devil's ivy as a starter plant. They are pretty robust or a ZZ plant.

Yep. What I bolded is key. People may think OMG where is the hose! But roots are deep, not on top

Arthurium does well for us

msukiwi

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#3122180 31-Aug-2023 12:08

networkn:...Despite that, my wife and I have an uncanny ability to kill plants of any type but recently I read about the health benefits (imagined or real who knows!) of having some pot plants in rooms around the house.

My first thought was "Stop watering them with Glyphosate (Roundup)!".🙃

neb

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#3122181 31-Aug-2023 12:09

qwertee:
I recommend start with a devil's ivy as a starter plant. They are pretty robust or a ZZ plant.

Just don't accidentally grow devil's lettuce instead...

neb

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#3122182 31-Aug-2023 12:11

tdgeek:
Yep. What I bolded is key. People may think OMG where is the hose! But roots are deep, not on top

And in particular for a plant of any size the roots eventually end up as a dense mesh at the bottom of the pot as they try and go deeper but can't, so beware of keeping that part underwater.

tdgeek

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#3122184 31-Aug-2023 12:12

msukiwi:

My first thought was "Stop watering them with Glyphosate (Roundup)!".🙃

On a slightly more serious note :-) Also don't hammer them with fertiliser. It can become too concentrated in a pot, and as they cant spread their wings inside and in a pot, they dont need heaps of fertiliser (But Google the plant to check)

hucknz

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#3122185 31-Aug-2023 12:16

A large number of houseplants are toxic to animals and small people, basically anyone trying a bite is going to have a bad time. That said, just put them up on shelves or dressers, etc. and you should be fine.

There are a number of good suggestions here, Peace Lily is probably the most common one people start with.

The single best thing I did when we bought some houseplants was spend a few dollars on a moisture/ph/light meter. I mostly just use it for checking the moisture, every Friday I go around the house and probe each plant. Low moisture gets a water, the rest get left alone. Haven't managed to kill anything since.

Lighting is also important, most plants don't want to be in direct sunlight so make sure they're in shaded corners of the room.

Otherwise, don't overthink it. There's so much stuff floating around about needing to use filtered water, use a specific fertiliser, feed with the salt of a nymph's tears, but most plants will be fine with just the right amount of water every week or two.

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mattwnz

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#3122235 31-Aug-2023 14:26

qwertee:

ZZ plant.

They aren't all that easy as they can easily rot and sometimes they are rotten when you buy due to overwatering in the store. They may look fine for months then the leaves start to curl. They are also highly toxic ad you are supposed to always wash hands after touching them, so would not recommend near animals or children. I got one of the Black Raven ZZ plants on clearance from a garden centre recently and it has damp soil and not sure if it will survive, but I am not going to water it for many months.

I would get a range of different plants and see how they survive and you will learn when they need watering. Ferns can be good, such as the bluestar fern. There are lots of facebook groups to buy house plants rather than paying garden centre prices. Although bunnings often have clearnaace plants cheap.

MikeAqua

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#3122249 31-Aug-2023 14:47

We have an African violet that has survived me forgetting to water it for weeks at a time. I thought I killed it a few times, but it after watering it perks up again.

Non-poisonous if that matters.

Mike

neb

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#3122251 31-Aug-2023 14:52

MikeAqua:
We have an African violet that has survived me forgetting to water it for weeks at a time. I thought I killed it a few times, but it after watering it perks up again.

We had one of those two. Watered the thing for years and then one day out of the blue it called me a honky. Now it just sits there listening to reggae music.

rphenix

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#3122306 31-Aug-2023 15:31

networkn:

My mother and mother-in-law were/are green-fingered. Despite that, my wife and I have an uncanny ability to kill plants of any type but recently I read about the health benefits (imagined or real who knows!) of having some pot plants in rooms around the house.

I am looking for attractive and incredibly (and I mean damn near impossible) hard-to-kill/low-maintenance.

Edit: No Cactus, or anything that could harm our cats (or kids).

TIA

Most succulents are good. Echeveria are so easy to propagate you can knock a bit off, pick it up a few weeks later and put in soil and you have a new plant pretty hard to kill.

MikeAqua

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#3122316 31-Aug-2023 16:13

neb:
MikeAqua:

We have an African violet that has survived me forgetting to water it for weeks at a time. I thought I killed it a few times, but it after watering it perks up again.

We had one of those two. Watered the thing for years and then one day out of the blue it called me a honky. Now it just sits there listening to reggae music.

I think that's a Jamaican violet. Or based on the Honky slur, a Rotorua violet.

Mike

tehgerbil

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#3122319 31-Aug-2023 16:25

blackjack17: Cyclamen Tradescantia Zebrina Spider plants Mother in law tongue Peace lily Ficus

+1 all the above, I wouldn't call Cyclamen indoor plants though. Sansevieria in particular are fantastic - They need legit 50ml of water every few weeks if that.

Anthuriums are also a great choice (popular in offices and cafes)

Syngoniums are also a good choice.

If you kill plants frequently then look at large established potted plants as they're more forgiving.

WyleECoyoteNZ

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#3122320 31-Aug-2023 16:30

These.

https://www.lego.com/en-nz/product/flower-bouquet-10280

Then put them in a nice display vase, bit of pebbles in the base, job done.

You really, really, really shouldn't be able to kill these!

concordnz

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#3122322 31-Aug-2023 16:48

Waaay, too much effort going into caring for houseplants here.

I have some 'non prickly succulents'
They come out in nice small white flowers at some point in the year (I can't recall exactly when - it just happens)

For 7 years I havnt wasted time with fertiliser.
Watering = 1/3 of a glass of water thrown at it once every 2 weeks (if I remember) - if it looks a bit droopy or shrivelled - it probably been a month without water and I throw 1/2 a glass at it and it perks right up.

(none of this messing around drowning it in the sink - that just removes critical minerals from the soil and you have to carry the thing....)

Some times I blow the dust off the leaves as a bit of a treat for it...

(that's the kinda plant you want, I suspect?)

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