I fully "blame" Noah for getting me into houseplants. He was growing all sorts of plants long before we even met. Carnivorous pitcher plants, cacti, euphorbia, and so many things I had never heard of. Do you know what lithops are? They are little plants that look like rocks. They flower once a year and if you water them more than two specific times during their growing cycle, they'll die. Noah has ten of them.
I think it was the year before last when I decided I wanted to have some indoor plants of my own. I try to choose things that are hearty, won't die instantly if I'm not super regular with watering, and have some kind of interesting characteristic. I am certainly not an expert on houseplants. I have killed, or nearly killed, more than one of my plants. But I have also brought some back from the brink and made changes that helped them thrive rather than just survive.
Shall we categorize these from "easiest" to "most finicky"? Of course this scale is based on my personal opinion, so a plant that I think is difficult to take care of might be the easiest plant ever for you.
(The burro's tail on the left side of the shelf is one of Noah's plants and I don't really know much about it.)
Spider Plant
I got these from my mom. They are super easy to take care of and even "came back from the dead" after I accidentally left them on the front porch for too long and the leaves all completely froze. I cut off the dead leaves, watered the pots of dirt sporadically over the winter, and pretty soon new little leaves started coming up from the roots. These guys can handle low light, the leaves will change to a paler green when they need water, and are all around very easy plants. They are perfect as a first time houseplant.
Pothos
These are pretty easy to take care of too. And they're super easy to propagate. When the vines start to get a little too long, looking a little too stretched out, snip off at least four inches from the end, make sure there's at least one leaf, and just stick the cut end into the dirt in the pot. That's it! It will root just fine. They will survive in low light, but they really thrive in brighter light. My pothos became even more colorful and variegated when I gave it more light.
Wandering Jew
This plant hasn't done terribly well in my care so far, to be honest. But it also hasn't completely died, so that has to count for something! I think it wasn't in the right kind of soil, and maybe not getting enough light. After re-potting it and moving it to the front porch, it has looked a lot happier. I even cut off a couple pieces to propagate for my mom. This is another plant that propagates very easily.
Ivy
I'm sure this is a specific type of ivy, but I don't know what it is. I nearly killed it over the winter. I think I didn't water it enough, and perhaps it was lacking proper light. Almost all of the vines died off, but I caught it in time and was able to help it along until it was warm enough for it to go on the front porch into better lighting. As with the previous plants, ivy also propagates pretty well. Once the plant was looking healthier and putting out new growth I snipped the vines a little shorter and stuck the freshly cut branches into the dirt in the pot. It is certainly happier than it was over the winter.
ZZ Plant
Quite often you will read that zz plants are impossible to kill. I don't know if that is really true, but this has been a pretty low maintenance plant. It can tolerate low light and you don't have to be super regular with watering. But of course giving it a little more attention and even some fertilizer can help it immensely. I've had this plant for a couple years and it has put out a few new shoots. I'm finding that I like plants that grow vertically, like the zz plant, rather than spreading out horizontally.
Pilea
This plant isn't doing as well as it was when I first got it, but it's still one of my favorites, probably because it looks kind of quirky, like something from a storybook. These pileas will produce off shoots that you can cut off from the main root and re-pot all on their own. Like the ivy, my pileas didn't do well over the winter, maybe because they weren't watered enough. But they seem to be happier now, especially after getting a bit of fertilizer.
Kalanchoe Bracteata (Silver Teaspoons)
Kleinia Stapeliiformis (Pickle Plant)
Senecio Crassissimus (Lavender Steps)
These three plants are my latest acquisitions and they all came from JW Succulents, our new favorite plant nursery. It is very hard to visit this nursery and not buy a plant. There are so many to choose from! All three of these plants require similar growing conditions and they are all drought tolerant once established, which is one of the main reasons I bought them. I'm not the best at watering my plants regularly so I wanted to choose some that could tolerate a little bit of neglect.
String of Pearls
This is my second string of pearls plant. My first one was a very tiny plant I bought from Dutch Touch Growers at the Zeeland Peddler's Market. I'm not sure what went wrong, but it shriveled up and died after a while. Noah bought this plant for me last year and it has done well so far, especially after being moved onto the front porch. After taking these photos I moved it into a larger pot and snipped the longer vines and tucked them into the dirt in the pot. Hopefully this will encourage the vines to put out roots and eventually make the plant even larger.
Angel Wing Begonia
I have no idea what I am doing with this plant. These are a couple of cuttings from my mom. I started them off just in a jar of water. Then I figured I should put them in a pot of dirt. But then they started drooping. So they went back into the jar of water and I eventually moved them onto the front porch with the rest of the plants. They finally perked up, grew roots, and new little leaves showed up. What am I going to do with it during the winter when it's too cold on the front porch? I don't know.
Deciding where all of the plants will go over the winter is something still in the works. For a while I was trying to figure out how to hang them in the living room window, either from the existing curtain rod or a new, sturdier rod. Noah is concerned about blocking too much light from that big window, so we've decided to install some hooks in our two south-facing windows and then I'll make some plant hangers. I'm thinking I could hang at most three plants in each window. Some plants will hang out under grow lights during the winter, but other will be hardy enough to hang in the windows. Perhaps someday we'll be able to better insulate the front porch and then it will be the plant room all year long, but for now, we'll have to cram plants into the rest of the house wherever we can find room during the colder months.
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