Sarah Mitchell 
I’ve owned three different dracaenas at once for a few years now — a corn plant (Dracaena fragrans) in my living room, a dragon tree (Dracaena marginata) on my desk, and a smaller marginata I’ve been growing from a cutting. They’ve taught me that “easy care” doesn’t mean “no attention needed” — it means the … Read more
I bought my Chinese Evergreen specifically because every plant shop employee I asked recommended it as “impossible to mess up.” That reputation turned out to be mostly true, but I still managed to stall its growth for the better part of a year through a watering habit I genuinely thought was correct. Once I fixed … Read more
My spider plant was a hand-me-down from my mom, already several years old, with plantlets dangling off it in every direction like it was trying to take over the whole room. I inherited it along with a warning: “it’s basically impossible to kill, don’t worry about it too much.” For the first year, I mostly … Read more
I killed my first string of pearls in about six weeks. I loved how it looked in the nursery — full, trailing, plump little beads cascading over the pot — and I brought it home, put it in a decorative pot with no drainage hole because it matched my shelf, and watered it on the … Read more
When I outgrew my single windowsill and moved a chunk of my collection to a metal shelving unit in a spare corner with almost no natural light, I assumed I could just get one grow light and hang it somewhere in the middle. That assumption cost me about six weeks of stretched, pale growth on … Read more
The first time I dealt with indoor plant pests, I didn’t actually see the bugs — I noticed my pothos looked strangely shiny, like someone had wiped the leaves with a thin layer of syrup. I assumed it was just healthy new growth catching the light differently until I ran my finger across a leaf … Read more
I bought my first Monstera deliciosa three years ago as a six-inch cutting in a plastic cup, already rooted, from someone selling plants out of their apartment. It felt almost wasteful not to try propagating it myself once it got big enough, so over the following two years I tried water propagation, soil propagation, and … Read more
My pothos propagation habit started because I felt guilty throwing away a vine I’d trimmed for length. It had gotten so long it was trailing across the floor and catching on my vacuum, so I cut off about two feet of it, and instead of tossing it, I dropped the cut end in an old … Read more
My first attempt at snake plant propagation was an accident. I knocked a pot off a shelf, snapped off two leaves, and rather than tossing them, I stuck them in a glass of water out of guilt more than expectation. Eight weeks later, I had actual roots. That accidental success turned into something of an … Read more
For almost two years, I had a pattern. I’d bring home a beautiful echeveria or a jade plant, water it “carefully,” and watch it turn to mush within a month. I blamed everything — not enough light, wrong pot, bad luck. It wasn’t until I repotted a dying haworthia and found roots sitting in what … Read more