Please recommend house plants even I can't kill off?

[YourObedientServant]

Hi all

Just looking for some advice. I'd love to have some house plants, maybe something large sitting on the floor, and a few small ones in little pots around.

I haven't a clue where to start. Are there any house plants more hardy/less maintenance than others? Any recommendations? I don't think I've ever bought a plant before and any I've ever been given (ie flowers in pots) have died sharpish. I'm not blessed with green fingers!

Thanks!

Failing that, Ikea do some nice artificial plants.

@giletrouge

On the other hand, if you want flowers I'd recommend giving stretocarpuses a go. Huge variety of them and they flower for ages and some of them have amazing massive leaves, too.

If you get these, OP, water them from the bottom, not the top.

Christmas cactus seem to like neglect. Don’t be fooled by the name they are neither cactus or only flower at Christmas.
Mine survived 16 weeks of lockdown neglect, at my second home, despite being in a very hot and sunny South facing room.
My Hoya vine, Clivia and orchids also survived, but the Orchids lost all their buds and were just about revived.

I second a peace lily mine has died several times and come back to life. I have moved it to a different room and it is now flowering .This advice comes from someone who kills plants on a regular bases

I have a senecio aquarine (from looking at label) and it lives on despite neglect!

If you want your spider plants to stay small you have to be mean to them. I rescued some babies from work at the start of lockdown and the ones that have been in the sun and watered regularly are massive and having babies of their own!

I'm going to be overrun with spider plants.

Peace lily. Almost impossible to kill. It wilts when it needs watering. And it can deal with sunlight, shade, heat and cold. Mine is flourishing and is the first plant I haven't killed

I feel very sad now. I have killed 2 aloe Vera and 2 peace Lily's. I am the destroyer

My weeping fig is in mostly shade, it gets a very small bit of light through the window, I hardly ever water it and it’s doing great!
Never dropped a single leaf.

Oh also, I have loads of peace lilies, they always end up going sparse and crap for me, the leaves brown and I end up chucking them.
Must stop buying them lyl xxx

Having been a previous plant destroyer, I’m doing quite well with various plants from Patch Plants website mentioned up thread. Possibly lockdown is making me more attentive to the plants... I even managed to re pot some this weekend.

I somehow have managed to not only keep my money plant alive....but it has actually grown.... preens self

I also have a vintage aspidistra. It originally belonged to my great grandmother.
Tough as anything.

I have what I think is called a silver nerve plant and I've not finished it off yet - it's quite a hardy little thing. It's very pretty and if I forget to water it and it wilts a bit, it springs back to life with some water. I'm so bad with anything green, I have killed a Heather in my garden and they live on Scottish mountainsides FFS!

Peace lilies for shade, spider plants, orchids. All seem to thrive on benign neglect.

Overwatering is the biggest problem for plants. I water most every couple of weeks, splash of miracle gro every now and then, repot or chop roots back when you see roots out of the bottom of the pot. Make sure there’s a hole in the bottom of the pot!

Peace lily's (spathiphyllum )have survived in my non-plant home for over a decade.

They have the great advantage that when short of water the leaves flop dramatically giving them the look of a dead octopus.

I've killed literally every other plant I've attempted to keep but my peace lily's are still here showing I'm not a complete failure at plant care DS killed a peace lily. Is he now a certified complete failure?

Christmas cactus seem to like neglect. Don’t be fooled by the name they are neither cactus They are cacti. They don't look like what people expect of cacti - their flattened stems look like leaves - but they have bunches of small spines coming out of specialised areas called areoles which is a sure sign that they are in the family Cactaceae.

Another vote for cacti or succulents. The more you neglect them the more they thrive. No they don't, they look dusty and miserable.

If you forget to water them, they're fine - it's what they're designed for. Overwatering is bad news. But if you completely neglect them, they will shrivel, get dusty and cobwebby, and look utterly miserable.

I have one of these that I bought in Ikea about 2 years ago and I usually kill everything.

zz plants
christmas cactus
devils ivy

@ImperfectTents

I feel very sad now. I have killed 2 aloe Vera and 2 peace Lily's. I am the destroyer

Me too I have killed cacti, aloe Vera and a Venus fly trap. Unfortunately I have to spend a lot of time keeping my children alive and happy but the plants drop to the bottom of the list

Pilea / Chinese money plant

Ooh watching with interest. Have killed two calla lilies, which were flourishing gifts from the end of term. So not even a month old, I'm gutted. I followed the instructions to the letter, They started flopping over, then just disconnected from the root.

Jade money plant and chinese money plants are great and little maintenance required