To think houseplants are a complete pain in the arse

[kitteninabasket]

My two monstera are out of control. The stems are massive and grow every fucking direction but up. They look NOTHING like the ones on Pinterest. I also get random mushrooms popping out of the soil.

My two monstera adansonii are ridiculously fussy. Their leaves curl up if I'm even one minute late with their watering. After I water them they sweat water droplets from their leaves which have stained my table. One of them has just developed some sort of spotty leaf disease and I'm tempted to let nature run its course.

My succulents are all stretched out and look shit.

My orchid's leaves got scorched in the sun so that looks like shit too now.

I've had three fungus gnat infestations. The bastard things were everywhere. They liked to hang out on my roller blinds which are now ruined from when I've opened them without checking and they got crushed into the fabric.

Am I just crap with plants or are they this much of a pain in the arse for everybody?

I plant some flowering occasionally but not many because daily watering with a hose is not doable for me; when we go to holiday, if they die, I can replace some , no more than 3 to 4

My houseplants always died so I stopped having them. Garden and outside pots are flourishing though. I buy a bunch of flowers every few weeks for indoors.

Any plant is easy in the right location but the problem with all house plants is they are not in the right location.

No plant really likes growing inside a British house - even if we're told they are suitable for shade etc - and so it's all a lot of nursing them through life.

Huh! I've put a layer of fine gravel on the top of my pots, watered from the bottom and jabbed yellow, sticky fungus gnat traps around the plants. Some gnats get their little feet stuck on the traps. Others do a little victory dance around the room. Sick of them!

@CornedBeef451 Do you spray Raid on the plants themselves or just on the top of the gravel / soil? Fungus gnats are the bane of my life! Thank you 😊

Seems Peace lilies are a favourite, please help in where I'm going wrong with mine.
Planted directly into the pot, watered weekly, fleeting sunlight and in a cool room.

After many years convinced I just couldn't keep houseplants alive, I started with a cute little Pilea and now have several of those, lots of spider plants, and two huge Lidl Monsteras which are a right PITA because they sprawl all over the place! They are pretty though. My main houseplant PITA woes are that we recently adopted two young cats and the bastards won't leave them alone! I worked out that nothing we have is lethal to them (Monstera aren't great but the cats aren't eating them) but they won't leave anything be. Apparently spider plants, along with being cat-safe, are mildly trippy for them! Which is presumably why my spiders all have bitten-off, brown leaves now.

Your peace lily looks fine @Treesandsheepeverywhere

To the poster before, I too have an Audrey (Monstera) 😁
Along with about 50 other plants (on the extra furniture I had to buy to house them in the right places.....)
Fungus gnats. Absolute fucking bastards.
Diatomaceous Earth didn't work for me.
What has worked is :
Bottom watering
Tight fitting outer pots
Using yellow stickies, actually lay them on the soil of infested pots if possible.
Nematodes (which you can also add to your potting soil to kill off anything in there too)
Small pots of water with a few drops of washing up liquid and apple cider vinegar in. The gnats are attracted by the vinegar smell and drown because of the washing up liquid. Also good to add a bit of humidity between your plants.
Spray bottle with a few drops of washing up liquid to scoosh the wee fuckers (I don't use fly spray)
Hope that's helpful to someone 🪻

Thank you, when you zoom in, a lot of leaves are browning at the tips, worried it will spread.
Have emptied the saucers of water after this thread so hoping its not overwatering.

A friend's are the same height but chunkier.

Don;t have any plants in the house. Not interested. My mum always had loads and every time we went away there was the faff about feeding them and watering and hoping they didn't dry out.... Just no.

Plants belong outside, not in the house.

I am not an expert but my spider plants had brown tips and I was told that it was the chlorine in the tap water that caused it. I swapped to using water from the water butt and gradually the brown tips have gone as it has grown new leaves.

I am OK with house plants apart from the diva ferns and unlike everyone else on here, my Monstera which although healthy, is exactly the same size as when I bought it two years ago but I am thinking a gift of a moss stick might encourage it?

We've just thrown 2 houseplants away. Friend nursed them back to health, but they just died again.

We've just done a collecting up of the Plant Armies (and cleaning of the surfaces underneath).

I put 7 Spider plants into one pot, have repotted one of the Tumerics so that twatty cat can continue molesting it instead of standing in the bastard thing and stomping down so she can tear more off, a bit of fern broke off, so that's now in an eggcup on the windowsill, I've found 12 other rooting succulents that DP had dumped on pot surfaces after said twatty cat had Godzillaed her way through them and thanks to twenty minutes' this afternoon trying to find the house under the Buddleia and Woodbine, he's decided to pot up three bunches of incredibly healthy looking Ivy to see if they'll root and provide a contrast by being hanging plants (three different leaf shapes). Oh, and he's found another Snake plant behind his monitor.

So my attempt to reduce the armies by 6 has resulted in a net increase in plants.

I’m monstera mad. If ever you want to rehome.

@NeverDropYourMooncup ooo keep a close eye on the rehomed ivy, they are an absolute bitch for spidermites!

As for cattish twattery!! Ours doesn't eat any of mine but uses them as a jungle to hide in & attack the dogs. Yesterday he just walked right over the top of a lovely, plump rhipsalis. He's also a tendency to use the soil in the big pots (6ft china doll, 5yo blood orange tree & 6ft yucca) as a littertray!

When we had our cat he wasn't remotely interested in the odd houseplant I managed to keep alive for more than a few days. However we had a lovely blue scabiosa in the garden and I noticed it was suddenly looking very flat. It turns out he used to sit on it to have a wee! I have no idea why this poor plant was his chosen toilet but it was well watered as he'd wee on it and we'd hose the poor thing down (plant not cat!)!

My cat has no interest in eating the plants, but he was in his element chasing the fungus gnats. I felt mean applying the nematodes.

What's wrong with it? Looks perfectly healthy to me.
Browning of leaves is normal as they get older. Your friend's chunkier plant may just have more "bulbs". I have about 10 lily shoots in my pot, my grandmother has three. So, naturally, mine is bushier and has more blooms.

Thank you, first time growing them and assumed the leaves would fully turn brown and die.

Some will as they get older so just give the plant a haircut a couple of times a year.

I like them and tend to give them names. Any rubber plant I’ve ever had has been called Fred. Current Fred is not looking too well. He’s fairly new and I’m not sure what’s wrong.
I always use rain water if I can and avoid overwatering.

im good with orchids but don’t particularly like them. They come as gifts! I water them once a month by completely filling the pots with water and leaving for 30-40 minutes then draining thoroughly. Then leave ignored for another month. Feed with very dilute baby bio.

I have mixed my spider army out of the kitchen as it was getting out of hand.