My peace lily is easily the most dramatic plant I’ve ever owned, and I mean that as a compliment. Within a day of getting thirsty, its leaves flop completely over the edge of the pot in a way that looks alarming the first time you see it. I panicked the first time it happened, convinced … Read more
My ZZ plant is the only houseplant I’ve ever hurt through kindness rather than neglect. I bought it specifically because I’d heard it was nearly indestructible, and I treated that reputation as an invitation to water it on the same weekly schedule as my more thirsty plants. Within about two months, the base of one … Read more
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