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.

Should also have said it was 30p and a yellow sticker in Tesco when he bought it. Not one to spend money was my old man....

These are all so brilliantly awful I am so so very happy to know I’m not alone in keeping terrible plants alive.
That grim cactus has really made me laugh.
Lol at Lazarus giving you the finger.

We've managed to keep a dragon tree alive for 29 years (given to us as a present in 1991 by student friends as thanks for letting us crash at our house for graduation). It's brother the yucca is long since dead. It's ugly, spindly an the soil is a bit mouldy but kind of feel at the right old age of 29 I need to keep it going

I had a plant once that DM gave me. Dear God, that thing was ugly. And HUGE. And in a pig-ugly pot.

Not sure what sort it was because I don't do plants, but it kind of had tentacles. DM loves plants and thinks that I should, too. So she dropped this monster off with lots of instructions on how to cosset it and fulfil its many requirements. It was very delicate, apparently, and she'd taken great trouble growing it to its current massive size. Needed to be kept in the warm indoors, given lots of sunlight, etc etc.

Now I had just moved house with a newborn baby. That frondy fucker was straight out into the back garden behind the shed, where I ignored it for a year. It got snowed on, waterlogged, you name it. Would it fucking die? Ohhhh no. The bastard looked exactly the same.

In the end I had to chuck it in the wheelie bin, pot and all. It took up half the bin.

Kevin your plant looks healthier than most, put it’s the only one that made me snigger out loud.

Just went to inspect the 2 year old poinsettia and the bastard is starting to turn red. I’ve guilt watered it.

We have an avocado tree in a pot in the kitchen. As it was dying (we're not good with plants) something else grew out of the pot. Turned out to be a passion flower which is now two storeys tall, growing up through the downsairs ceiling through a lightwell up to a velux in the roof- and it's lost all its lower leaves. So, basically, downstairs in our kitchen, we have a pot with two sticks in. Upstairs it's like a fucking jungle.

Hold the front page; I think I may have a winner!
I am desperately clinging on to this sad specimen. I grew it from an avocado stone & it had a magnificent collection of leaves until all of a sudden they started turning brown & dropping off. What I thought was a whole load of budding points turned out to be some horrible scaly insect infestation. Got rid of them and desperately hoping the new shoots will sprout but no joy. 😢
Planted a whole bunch more stones (look at how millennial/woke I am with all my avocados! 🤣) and they're starting to sprout finally. Yay!

@KevinBaconHoofDressing you win, that cactus is hideous!

@KevinBaconHoofDressing I have actual tears running down my face

@Frouby Venus fly traps go dormant in winter. It will be back in rude health very soon.

I move mine to the greenhouse for the winter because they struggle to go properly dormant in a centrally heated house. But this winter has been so mild, they’ve stayed fully active all winter. I checked on them today and one was cheerfully sucking on a shocked snail.

Seeing some of these is making me feel a bit better about mine!

Here is the sod that refuses to die, no matter how neglected it just keeps on growing bigger and bigger. Everything else I actually try my hardest to nurture dies in a nanosecond

Oooo Venus you have given me hope 🙂

@bettytaghetti same! In the back you can see it's younger sibling accepting the same fate...

I love the poor cactus with erectile dysfunction . I'd be tempted to ruthlessly cut back many of these pathetic plants to try to instil a new lease of life. That spider plant looks like it just needs all the dead, crispy leaves removing, for example.

I haven’t watered this bugger in months , I wish it would make a proper effort at living or just give up the ghost.

@ScribblyGum I urge you to be strong and to dump the sly overlord on the compost/green bin/weighted down with rocks in a plastic bag (choose your weapon with care) and embrace life free from plant-based tyranny.

I'm also finding it a huge relief that other people think this too. I honestly thought that in life there are:

• people who love and nourish house plants
• people who kill house plants through benign neglect
• people who wisely never invite house plants into their lives

And,

• me, locked in a slow death embrace, wishing for it to shuffle off the mortal coil but somehow incapable of delivering a final blow. But now I find out there are loads of us!

I think what we (they) need is a nice discrete black transit van doing the rounds of all of the above, collecting them gently and transporting them to the Eden project , where they will fulfil their destiny and replenish the UK when everything has perished. Except the snail eating fly trap. That's going to Broadmoor.

This thread is the best. I have a graveyard of crispy old orchids on my window sill.

We have ugly cactus - it belonged to DH's grandmother and we think it is more than 100 years old.

It used to be small but in a fit of foolishness I repotted the bastard and after 8- years in a tiny pot it then grew to triffid like proportions.

Not only is it ugly and huge it also has vicious whisker-thin spines that hurt like fuck if you try and move the bastard. It's also covered in cobwebs as if you try and remove them it spikes you

It does flower extrvagantly once a year with flowers the size of saucers ... but even they have their downside as they drip sticky stuff everywhere

80 years in a tiny pot (I unleashed the beast)

I have been crying at this thread. Thank you!!

Gasping hooting and shaking with laughter over here