What’s your oldest houseplant?

[Gardenquestion22]

I’m lying on the couch under the 3 foot canopy of a twisted fig I rescued 25 years ago from an office when I changed jobs. No one was going to care for it. It’s lived in 3 houses and.survived a year of renovations, plaster dust and biding moved room to room till settling behind the couch 4 years ago.

I have a Trichodiadema bulbosum that has been with me for well over thirty years. Your post has reminded me that I took a gamble on leaving it in the greenhouse over winter and I need to check on its wellbeing. Every now and again I fall out of love with certain of my plants and deliberately neglect them. Then when they die I am grief-stricken.

I also have a cereus peruvianus and some kind of monstrous opuntia that must both be thirty by now. The cereus is a sweetheart, a lovely teddy bear. But the opuntia, around four foot tall, attacks me when I go near it and hosts mealy bugs just to spite me.

My mum has one she inherited from her mother who died in 1991. She remembers in being in the house as far back as the 1960s!
still going strong today. I can’t remember what the plant is called sorry but I see it every time I go round :)

I have a mother in-laws tongue I acquired from my halls of residence in 1989, so it's at least 37 years old.

DH has a money plant that predates me, we got together in 1997.

My DM has a Xmas cactus from well before I was born (60+ years). The current iteration, which is huge is actually a leaf cutting from the original, but it still counts i think as genetically the same.

I’ve got a fiddle leaf fig that we’ve had for around 10 yrs. it’s moved house four times and across borders. Currently stopped from flopping over by the top being tied on to a picture rail.

My Peace Lily is somewhere between 20 and 25 years old. It didn't flower for years and then I figured out it needed reporting. It is due a repot again actually.

I have an orchid that’s 10 years old, it is in flower atm and it had a baby which is also flowering.

Im a bit hit and miss with houseplants, orchids and asparagus ferns I seem to get right but I have tried and failed with lots of others. Even peace lily’s die on me!

Yes thinking about it have an aspidistra from a cutting from my 80 y.o. MIL that is from her granny….

I have a Dragon Tree which was left on our doorstep the day we moved in - 27 years ago! It was moving in gift from the Estate Agent who handled the sale. He started off on a window ledge in a little pot - he now lives in the dining room and goes floor to ceiling! We have to trim him every now and again which i hate doing but when he hits the ceiling he obvs has nowhere to go so he starts growing horizontally! He's called Spike and is very much a part of the family!! I'd be devastated if he died!

I have a moth orchid which my (now late) MIL bought for me in 2009 to mark (?) the miscarriage I suffered on my 14th pregnancy week.

None of my other indoor plants have survived this long but this orchid keeps going. Tbh it needs re-potting badly but I’m worried I’ll do it wrong and it won’t survive the transition.

I have three maidenhair ferns which are 30 years old. If they get too dry the go brittle, so I just give them a chop and back comes new growth. Love the delicate foliage.
also got a cyclamen which is about the same, the corm is 10 inches across.

A Christmas cactus which belonged to someone who died before I was born. I am mid 60s.

Two plants from my university days.

A few others which are at least 20 years old.

I appear to have a knack for keeping plants alive (but lack many more useful skills).

A grape ivy thats over 33 years old. It was a cutting from my aunt's plant and she died in '93. It's on it's 9th or 10th house with me.

I got a tricolor maranta in 1980. It, or its descendants, are still going strong and several of family and neighbours also have healthy plants from cuttings.

An aspidistra of unknown vintage. It was an adult plant when I met it in 1990. It tried to die about 5 years ago but I nursed it back to health and it's doing well.

A monstera, again of unknown vintage. I know it arrived some time in the late 1980s and the main stem is still the original, though I've topped it on several occasions and again, various neighbours have its offspring.

A jade plant that I grew from a single leaf that I found on the floor underneath a really big one in the orangery of a stately home circa 1984.

I volunteer in a care home on Saturdays, one of the residents who has dementia has a cactus she one a fair in her teens. She struggles so much but loves to share the story of her very old cactus

*she won

A miraculous amyrillis that I was given in c1994.
It's miraculous because it keeps producing a bloom every year despite very little effort or tending.

Dad has a cactus that he first got as a teen. It's now 72 years old.

Cross post on v old cacti !

I have a fern that was my grandmothers mothers so well over 100 years old. She had cut pieces of it in her wedding bouquet and so did my gran so it was very sentimental. I was so worried id kill it but it's pretty much indestructable despite looking very delicate and lace like.
I don't really enjoy caring for plants but I enjoy propagating baby ones. Feels a bit wizard-y 😁 but then I just give them away (or give away the bigger ones) so of the ones I've bought probably oldest is maybe 3 years.

A peace Lily I bought the first week of uni in 1993.

I have a cactus that belonged to my great great grandmother. Well over 100 years in the family.

Had to google what our plant is but its also a Dragon Tree. Hes called Fred and and was bought as a small.plant from B&Q when DH and I first moved in together 30 years ago

A Peace Lily my mum bought me from IKEA when I left for university 26 years ago. It's bomb proof. I've never repotted it and still going strong.

I have a Schefflera which is over 40 years old. I bought it at Homebase when I was in my teens.