Thread for really fucking ugly houseplants

[ScribblyGum]

That you wish would just die naturally, but because they just won’t you are burdened by guilt with prolonging their pitiful heinous existence.

Here is my entry, a 14 month old poinsettia. Just look at the state of it, ugly Christmas 2019 bastard.
Can I bin it? No I cannot. Have I taken it outside to die by cold twice and then brought it back in again? Yes, yes I have.

JUST DIE WILL YOU.

Show me your horrid plants.

All plants die within a week of me buying them, no matter how much they’re taken care of. I now assume it’s my mere touch that kills them. I can come touch your plant if you want?

I can’t do houseplants, growing up was like the day of the triffids In my 1970s home. I do flowers but no plants...they all go outside to die. Worst present ever, is if someone buys me an orchid. I end up giving them to my Mum.

@BogOffWinter I have a good friend who is also a mnetter who caused a big limb of my apple tree to fall off just by looking at it . That’s plant killing skills right there.

This prick. I've neglected it as much as humanly possible. It doesn't flower, it doesn't perk up... But my late gran gave it to me two years ago and instructed me to get some life back in it so I cant chuck it!

@AnduinsGirl plant guilt + late nan guilt. You’ve got that one FOREVER.

Cut flowers last longer in my care than flowering plants

I have two spider plants in the bedroom window. As far as I am aware , they are entirely self sufficient, unless the window cleaner takes pity on them and waters them through the vent. They thrive. They have lots of babies. For some reason throwing away a plant feels like putting a gerbil in a wheelie bin.

I would love to not murder house plants but I have failed miserably. My longest living house plants aren't ugly they are plants in a bottle, you stick the plug in the top, put them on a mildly sunny windowsill, you never have to touch it again, it is a miniature eco sustem and will feed and water itself inside the bottle. It's amazing.
All you have to do is turn it round every few days.

@ScribblyGum your friend definitely has some skills there!!

@ScribblyGum I love you're plant

Ah plant guilt yes. I've inherited various plants my children half killed and then abandoned or put to die in the garden.
I took on one aloe which then grew enormous and birthed several offspring which I then potted on. At one point I therefore had 14!
Non doing orchids are my bete noir. I put them under the camelia in the garden in much the same way eskimos were said to leave their elders out in the snow.
Apologies if that insults any Inuits

AnduinsGirl DH and I are crying with laughter at your post!

This thread is brilliant. It's not just me that resents not-quite-dead-enough plants that hang around just to piss me off. I once retrieved an orchid stalk in a pot from the green bin after several days because I felt it was haunting me from the driveway. It did flower again though.

How do you keep them alive!! I have killed so many house plants, can’t even keep a cacti alive
Can’t even keep a Venus fly trap alive even though my house seems to be full of flies in the summer

I'm so glad it's providing amusement!!! :D Honestly, every time I see the damn thing I say a little FFS to myself. :(

I'm not allowed plants any more. I can't keep them alive! I can look after them for you if you like?

@MrsMcKitty why under the camellia, is that where plants like to die?

I’ve not got a camellia

I’ve just realised my entry is from 2018 not 19. It’s vintage and yet also really shit.

I am a gardener. My house is full of houseplants. I even professionally supplied and maintained office plants for a while. So, you could say I am something of an expert.

As a result, friends and acquaintances regularly send me photos of ugly house plants in various states of failure-to-die, asking what they should do with them because they’ve had them twenty years or a child produced it for Mother’s Day or something. They want to know what to do to restore the plant to health and respectability.

My response nine times out of ten is to chuck it. Then go to the garden centre, and buy yourself a nice new one. People are so grateful. It’s like they need to be given permission.

Under the camellia is conveniently bare and not required for anything else like summer bedding or spring bulbs. It also gets hidden later in the year thus enabling the 'out of sight, out of mind' effect and so is the natural final resting place.

I had one of these. A peace lily by MIL gave me some number of years ago. Now MIL bought herself one at the same time and it has been luxurious and verdant ever since. Mine sulked on a windowsill, went brown round the edges, never fucking flowered and generally depressed me and made me feel inadequate. And feeling like every time she came round, MIL was despairing at the type of woman her son has married
But the fucker just would not die. It persistently clung on.

And then one day last month I snapped. I threw it out (on the compost). I feel liberated. I luxuriate in my empty windowsill. I've taken back control. I've thrown off the shackles of my oppressive leafy overlord. Ha! Take that.

OP I’m jealous yours has still got red leaves on, mine is basically twigs in a pot. But not dead. It’s from 2018, I thought it might flower this year, but no. It just dropped all its leaves.

My ugliest is an orchid I bought from ikea.. Every time I think it’s finally dead, a new green leaf grows and springs back to life. No bastard flowers on it, just brown/green leaves. I can’t remember the last time I watered it.

Although I also have a nearly dead maidenhair fern in a planter in the garden where it clings onto the last vestiges of life despite frost, slugs and cat pee.

Your poinsettia is the same age as the one I put on the compost heap last week. I claimed it was dead, but it wasn't. But it was entirely bald down one side and seemed to have killed off its most leaf-prolific branch in some kind of attempt at self-preservation. It pushed its luck.

Bursars You do know that your MIL will buy you a new one, don't you