To think houseplants are a complete pain in the arse

We moved into a brand new house a year ago and every single visitor brought us a plant

I'm not really into plants, I loathe gardening. But somehow benign neglect seems to be working. I always water from the base and usually only when the soil is dry - except the orchid, I give it a couple of drops of water whenever I put the kettle on, it's in the shade next to it so it's easy.

I have a cheese plant (I call it the triffid because it's fucking massive now), a spider plant, a prayer plant, a dracaena, two peace lilies, an orchid, a Chinese money plant, a parlour palm and a chlorophytum.

I looked after the succulent my son was given when he moved into student digs , and then left it at home one summer holiday.

The bastard plant nearly dies, then recovers, and keeps filling the pot with baby plants. I’m now onto great great grandchildren of that damned thing. When DS finally took it to his post-university rental he killed it in 3 months, and I still have windowsills crammed with offspring.

DD said - could you split my plant like you split DS’s, because it’s getting crowded. Now I have 8 pots full of that type of succulent too.

I spent years avoiding house plants because I don’t need more things to look after, and now I have loads of them that I didn’t choose but feel too guilty to get rid of.

It’s like when the kids dumped the stick insects on me when they were little. Didn’t want them, got loads.

@PinkSunsetSky I feel the same way about my plants! I drag them around the house until I did somewhere they seem happy. And I always feel I know them better once I've seen their roots and repotted them.

Do you mean variegated (2 colour) or fenestrated (holey)? if they are variegated you can sell your cheeseplant offspring for mega bucks, fenestrated is normal though. I've been trying to find an affordable variegated one for ages.

I suddenly got into houseplants when we moved house two years ago and went from 4 to 40! I then offloaded a load at my friend's church sale so back down to under 30.

I really like them. I don't have ornaments or decorations so the plants act as both. I also like pottering around watering them and repotting as needed, I even have a "repotting station" in the garage, it's really just a small work surface with a bag of soil underneath but feels much nicer than kneeling on the floor.

That said, I do have some plants I don't like and am resentful of. I have two old aloe veras that won't die and a massive, ugly type of snake plant that my BIL gave me so I can't rid of.

Fungus gnats I deal with by only bottom watering and then going nuclear at the first sign of one and using fly spray on the top soil of each plant. I tried nemetodes, carnivorous plants and yellow sticky things but a monthly spray of Raid is much more effective.

I also have an out of control monstera. I used a hoop plant support so it is growing upwards but I'm not sure how long it will work for.

https://www.amazon.co.uk/VLYHGO-44x20cm-Supports-Tomatoes-Lavender/dp/B0BZMYKY2G/ref=mpssa114?crid=3HJ286GBVIW2E&dib=eyJ2IjoiMSJ9.YMYGLhWKgwLFqGLEkuU3Gq4Riw7S8lgzS2Z77hrjTwAl9eApmtlPXLwh7iLprXvJ2tptZ1EWjGAeCuckHG2RpzJgGXmVo5lVV885sWVtj3DL8kxL9bJkjd9BLaV-nWxS3hXJJhff6apgDI-9T0lp3lTgTj5UAmoSgofnFooH2GJFgzqx2i2teEiGOkkMymum3Ou3pmez0dtR--IrM16w.ntEueclyHYx6q1TycOHARQvken-t017YX0ZggthttQ&dibb_tag=se&keywords=hoop+plant+support&qid=1723448828&sprefix=hoop+plant+support%2Caps%2C122&sr=8-4

Love that this thread is now like a house plant clinic 😆

I have about 40-odd dotted about. Everything bobs along OK, although reading here, I need to be a bit tougher with my monsterra I think.

Advice on a boston fern. Mine seems determined to die - leaves are brown. I tried moving it to make sure it's in bright but indirect light. I'm very careful with watering to make sure it doesn't get soggy (I have a moisture meter), it gets misted regularly. But the bloody thing is refusing all care and I don't know what else to do. I can keep orchids and maidenhair ferns and mimosa alive - but this fern which is apparently 'low maintenance', is defeating me.

I have an anthurium (gift) that I have managed to keep alive for way longer than I normally do but it no longer flowers. Any tips on how to get it flowering again?

I hate most house plants with a passion, especially when people have a row, or cluster of them - it gives me the absolute creeps. I just find their presence overwhelming and domineering, and think they look quite menacing.

Triffids!

I hate most house plants with a passion, especially when people have a row, or cluster of them - it gives me the absolute creeps. I just find their presence overwhelming and domineering, and think they look quite menacing.

I have no interest either in being given extra work to do, and find plants are just extra work. For some reason, I have been bought lots of plants as gifts over the years, and each time I wince, and think why could you not have bought cut flowers instead! I adore cut flowers. I’ve told my Mum many times that I don’t like most indoor plants, and I don’t even think to water them and they just die, and have asked her to not buy them for me, but she still does!!! I’ve killed every single one she’s given me, and still she buys more. I now have one stuck on my kitchen windowsill that she bought for our Anniversary. I have nowhere else to put it, and I hate plants in kitchens. I’d give it away, but I know this would upset her when she visits, so I’ll put up with it until I inevitably kill it.

I must admit that I do have a ZZ plant though, as I find them pretty - they’re the only houseplant I like, and fortunately they are so easy to look after. I hardly ever water it, and it looks fabulous, and has grown so much, but as much as I like it, one is definitely enough. I’d never think now, oh let’s buy more of them and line them up, or let’s put them in other rooms.

Only monstera plant I've ever known was one growing in a corner of a house Mum and I lived in decades ago. It was enormous. It was also right wear the water meter was ... I'm convinced there would be the remains of a few meter readers hidden in its depths.

I have a few plants that are very happy in the bathroom and a Christmas cactus that seems happy on a specific window.

But I agree that the average home isn't the right conditions for a lot of plants. Plus they actually want to grow and their full gown self is messy.

I love the look but I figured I was wasting so much money on my failed attempt to keep them alive that I invested in expensive fake ones. Treat myself to cheap fresh flowers once a month.

I honestly thought there was something wrong with me as I kill them despite following all the instructions. Then I recently went to Kew Gardens and saw loads of common house plants in their 'natural' environment! Lovely, dark, humid tropical environments or hot, dry environments that I have no way of replicating. Since then I've gotten rid of anything fancy and have a house full of spider plants and pilea. Boring but alive!

I see them in shops and get seduced into thinking how lovely they would look in my home. the damn things always die on me but i hold my hands up; either I forget to water then drown them the leaves drop off etc i end up with sick looking stems! I do try but I even end up killing spider plants

I have around 150 house plants plus quite a few cacti. They are in every room in the house and I love them. To me a house is bare without any plants

Place marking for later as I love plants with issues. Our home is full of rescues!

I only have one, Little Steven the Spider-plant, and he's survived against all the odds. He got left in the garden and forgotten about, brought back indoors in an attempt to revive him and now has babies!

I've lost count of the amount of garden plants I've killed though...

Well, you’re better than most if you can keep orchids. I think they’re so difficult.

Yes, with monstera trim anything unwanted off at the base. Do you have a moss pole? Tie stalks firmly to that and if you keep it spritzed with water the aerial roots will be encouraged to burrow into it and not fly out every which way.

I have a succulent on the kitchen windowledge which has sprouted babies out the edges of the pot, do I just pull them out and repot to establish new plants?

I also have a MIL tongue which attracted gnats, got rid of them eventually by using gnatstop topper and bottom watering although the little bastards still try to get a foothold occasionally.

Same, I always say it’s miraculous that I got my children to adulthood.

Only good houseplant I ever had (not that I looked after it, Mum did - she liked plants) was a maidenhair I got from work when my first job closed down. It was in one of those self-regulating pot things, you poured water down a pipe. Thrived with very little maintenance for a decade or so, iirc.

I kill all house plants by total neglect so I probably should not comment BUT I know one thing: They all tend to lean towards the sun, so you just have to turn them around regularly in order to straighten them out.

I have a maidenhair fern….. it’s a complete diva! Needs sprayed every day and watered every second. If you forget about it, it shrivels up quickly and never recovers. Totally unforgiving. I’ve had this one 1 year but will see how much longer it lasts.

Peace plant, amazing. Could forget to water for weeks but will still survive if you give it a good water .

Oooh plant talk..

My little bambino alocasia zebrina finally surprised us with a new leaf last week, no idea how he snuck that out without anyone noticing, after months of the same number of leaves, all with brown tips 🙁

His big buddy Marvin Monstera is going absolutely fucking NUTS in the humidity - both are in our bathroom (wet room), and Marvin needs a chop to get rid of some of his crappier leaves, and I really should split him but I have nowhere to put his offspring..... is it really bad if I don't?

And how can a 4ft plant suddenly produce a huge and very nicely fenestrated leaf seemingly overnight, outta nowhere?!

I'd like him to grow across the ceiling so its like showering in a jungle eventually!! Not sure how practical that actually is though...

Otherwise, all my other plants live in the frog tanks, behind glass and seem to thrive on severe hair cuts, frog poo, dead flies and they do get misted multiple times a day... but otherwise neglected as its the frogs I look after (the judgey little bastards, tapping their toes at me to feed them).