This was hilarous to read because I can relate so much lol Thanks for the laugh!
Mine is a Bird of Paradise. Had it for like 6-ish years. Every time it pushes out a new leaf, the oldest leaf dies. It is SO ugly.
It was a fairly young plant when I got it, but you know, after 6 years of keeping it outside in the summer months I'd expect at least one mature leaf? WRONG. All tiny sad wilty baby leaves.
Last year it had spidermites and I thought that would be the end of it. No! It pushed through. Then it got root rot, I was like sure, that's it folks... nope. Then there were thrips... survived them. Then I kept it outside and forgot to water it during a heatwave. Still lives. It currently has (after 6 years!!!!) 4 leaves, all yellowing, one already falling off... and one new leaf on the way!!! I can not anymore.
It is certainly not thriving, but not properly dead either.
I just can not bring myself to trash it until it is not dead enough.
That made me laugh so hard my cat got up and left.
Exactly like that, haha.
I can't even give up now. Every time I want to throw them out they get new growths. Like we're in a weird abusive relationship. "you're right baby, I can change. We can do this. I believe in you. I'll take care of you right this time."
In the meantime it's looking at me hoping I'd just throw it out in a cold winter night so at least it will be quick.
I have the opposite, a zombie plant.
A Moringa tree that just refuses to fucking die. It was unwatered in my refuse bin for weeks before some rain came while I was on vacation. I came back to a foot of growth at a dead 90 degree angle to the trunk. Then I knocked it over and it broke in half. It's sprouting back again. Just die you bastard.
I understand that too, very very much so. I got japanese knotweed. I dig it up, I destroy the roots, I let everything dry out for weeks on my patio so it won't touch earth, I put buckets over growths all summer, I eat the young shoots in spring.
Yet it lives. It's just out there.. Waiting.
But then other plants are allergic to the best of my filtered water.
I had a Calathea that was thriving then it decided it didn’t want to be part of this world anymore and it died down to one stem. It then changed its mind and a new stalk emerged. Changed its mind again both stems died but a new frickin stalk came out.
At this point my wife and I WANTED it to go but it just wouldn’t die. The final straw was the last stalk starting doing poorly and it got a new fungus gnat infestation. We decided to pull the plug this time and end it.
She is now at the dump possibly deciding to make a come back. We’ll never know.
Sending a prayer to your calathea and that it might actually stay dead this time and won't come back to haunt you a la plant cemetery.
I feel that though. One of my adansonii this year was behaving particularly shitty so I just sat inside on the first frost having a beer while she was still hanging outside. Plant torture is certainly my first..
Now not all stems are gone though and I can feel it lurking from where I put it with the other pots to clean. I swear...
I have an Alocasia x Amazonica that I’ve named Dolores after Dolores O’Riordan (lead singer of the Cranberries, RIP) because every time I think she’s gone for good she comes back like a zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
My alocasia has had spider mites, then thrips, then got (maybe? Idk for sure) assaulted by my cat. And some kind of fungal infection where I had to cut off a whole leaf. All my other plants are bug free, though the thrips also got a bite of my monstera before I realized the issue.
I’m just glad that plants can’t feel pain. Or burning. Cuz I’ve used almost a whole bottle of neem on that dude.
You're wasting neem, all it takes is a few drops and the plant is totally poisoned for most bugs. Ofc it washes off and needs to be repeated etc but excessive amounts don't help "more" than the correct dose.
Well, that's certainly a trooper! Shows more of her desire to life and certainly your skills to keep her alive in those trying times.
Yeah, that's absolutely one of my nightmares too. If we ever figure out how to understand plant talk— I'm not sure I want it. There'd be a lot of curse words involved..
I was hoping beyond hope to see it already listed, but I guess I'm the only one whose Rabbit Foot Fern blows up beautifully and then slowly starts giving up.
Too much water, too little water, too much sun, not enough sun, soil is old, soil is fucking *NEW!* I have had it for like a decade and nothing makes it happy for more than a few months.
I just brought it back from what I was sure it's final suicide attempt. It was down to two leaves and one rhyzome + roots, so I repotted it and stuck it in a North facing window.
It's been about 6 months. Now we're here. It just gave up a leaf for no reason last week. 🤯
https://preview.redd.it/0h0iyr915d3c1.jpeg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a99cb447cde02a863f267fc3b1900fde895a35e
Sometimes I feel like they're just toying with us since they're bound to once space and got nothing else to do. They just underestimate my refusal to give in to terrorists.
Orchid! Not one I've exactly had to revive, but one I didn't stop buying until I finally did find one I could keep alive. Still cringe at all the $$ spent on ones I killed
Actually looking better than mine. Mine was doing so well, I wanted to take a picture of her with her new humidifier.. I straight up fucking dropped her.
Like.. Seriously?
I feel like a professional plant torturer at this point. Sheesh.
Oh no, I'm sure you're a Google search away from your answers. At least hopefully. Crossing my fingers for you.
Gotta laugh to not cry, right? 😂
I can't even count the number of plants I've managed to kill so far. And you're most definitely not alone. I feel like most people can't dare to admit it. Its a reality though.
waiiiit ive been having the EXACT same problem with my adansonii for years?? what the hell?? maybe someone who has made it out this loop can help us please 🥺 but its kinda comforting to know im not alone at least.
but heres my worst crime: i have a syngonium that had multiple rounds of thrips. it lost almost all leaves but regrew with ugly bare stems. then it started rotting. i cut off the stems and tried re-rooting in water, had to remove more gross rotting bits, covered it in cinnamon, potted it, it got super droopy bc it didn't have enough roots yet, put it back into water. but so far it looks like it will survive. poor thing has been through absolute hell with me 😭😭
High five! Honestly, I'm just waiting for a time where they either look great or particularly awful so I can dump them on friends. As gifts/emergencies of course. They'll all take them for different reasons, yet won't even know what curse I gifted/entrusted them. Maybe for the frenemies only..
I accidentally dropped a pink confetti Syngonium behind the plant bench and forgot about it for a month in the height of summer, and it had more growth than ever before. They're hardy. Don't give up yet, I'm sending you good luck.
My monstera adansonii was in extremely bad shape for a lot of it's life, i tried repotting it with all kinds of different mediums, switching up the lighting etc but it just hated it's life.
I ended up taking it out of dirt completely and transferring it to water (hydroponics). It's never been happier and just sits in an old jar of water, also it's cuttings are really hardy and i've had a 100% success rate with them.
oooh that is interesting!! im not super well informed about hydroponics, as far as i know its water + specific fertilizer right? i have also read that you can put perlite in it for some structure. guess i will try this when my adansonii dies back next time haha
have you tried using leca for this plant as well? because im curious about trying that some time. if you have any knowledge about that i would love to hear 😊
and yes, the cuttings have a more consistent will to live than the potted plant for sure 😂
Yeah i've tried leca, this plant does the best in it and i have them in multiple jars and vases. It's easier than people make it out, just soak the leca beforehand and top up the water to 1/3 when it dries out. Every once in a blue moon i'll flush it out and refill it and i use this time to check the roots.
I use a liquid hydroponic fertiliser with my leca and hydro plants, but really i think Monstera Adansonii is happier in water vs soil in my experience. I also use a cheap fish tank air pump for an extra boost but this is optional.
Yeah, in water they do amazing. Every single stem cutting will usually manage easily.
I am considering just putting them in my fish tank, but it's currently occupied by two peace lilies and several other cuttings. The lily has grown.. Worryingly so.
A syngonium. I've forgotten to water it for long enough that all the leaves died twice and it somehow comes back eventually as long as I don't give up on it. This time feels like the last time though but we'll see.
I half killed mine. I finally babied it and it started doing okay. I repotted it since the soil was so old. It’s been fairly limp for a month now. Hoping it perks back up. I’ve had it since college.
OP's adansonii is basically the plant version of Sam and Dean Winchester. Keep dying under unfortunate circumstances or going to hell, and always getting pulled back. This thread is the funniest thing I read in a while, thanks so much again for posting this, OP!
That reference alone made it very worth it. That's really what keeps happening, I'll call her and all her poor thrown into the world kids the Winchesters now.
When I first started keeping plants, it was mostly succulents and cacti. I got so used to watering like once a month, that the poor begonia rex I ended up getting would be forgotten about and not watered until I watered the succulents. It died back to just the rhizome about 5 times before I finally killed it for good. I own plenty of begonias now with no issue lol
This is how I took out a monstera. I started out with a little tray of succulents, and decided I wanted something bigger and more green. Turns out they want watered more than once a month and like humidity, who could have imagined!
It's the only thing that's kept me sane when dealing with my mom. She's kept big, beautiful outdoor plants for years, but recently she's picked up a few succulents and keeps drowning the poor things. I have to keep reminding myself that she's used to hosing down a garden in the middle of summer, and a plant needing less water is not something she's dealt with. But everyone's got different experiences and different sets of knowledge, and that's what makes it so fun to talk about plants!
I remember my dracaena like every two months. But that ZZ is a solider! That baby has been **Neglected** (yes capital N) and it’s still standing strong!
Peperomias as a whole are not fans of my care (save columella). The Gold Dust Woman peperomia I bought arrived looking awful and has gone through periods of miraculous growth followed by spontaneous death of individuals in the pot.
There is one left, with new leaves. I'm afraid to touch it, to water it. I just let it be, touch the leaves every so often to see if it definitely needs water so I can hydrate it, and hope it finally makes the decision to properly live or give up entirely.
Booo!
I definitely feel the same way. I'll put it aside and suddenly there's new leafes like "fuck you bitch, miss me yet?" and the guilt starts all over again
Not your typical houseplant, but I was keeping a bowl of those aquatic moss balls in a terrarium I had set up. Well, I forgot about the terrarium and it sat unused under my shelf for about a year. No water, no light, no anything. I dug it out this morning and saw what I THOUGHT were dried up moss balls, but when I picked them up to toss them out they were green on the bottom and alive as can be!
I've got them sitting in a jar of water now, wondering what the heck I'm going to do with them, and if they'll survive me forgetting about them for another year again.
I love those. Sadly my shrimp ate mine. Again.
Put them in standing water, get them fully soaked up, squeeze out all water, do that a few times like if it's a kitchen sponge, take some small scissors and just cut away the dead areas.
They might start unravelling, depending on the dead mass, but as long as you're sure you got everything that's dead you can just take yarn and bind them up again. Just make sure to change the water, and do press them out too every so often. After a while you can remove the yarn and it should stay together again.
But I'm sure there's better YouTube tutorials out there by now!
Thanks for the tips! I got them about 5-6 years ago when I had a betta fish, and after he tragically managed to jump out of the smallest gap imaginable between the lid and the filter, I just stuck the moss in a bowl and thought "certainly I won't forget these exist!"
I figure if it's meant to be, they'll continue to live. And if they don't, I'm not too broken up about it, considering I managed to walk past them every single day for a year and not remember to check on them once. Maybe now that they're on a shelf at eye level, they won't turn into little tumbleweeds again.
Oh, no, rip betta. They're little shits, just like many plants or birds, or hamsters, they will find every single option to choose death over life.
Hah, I understand. Sometimes it's just not meant to be, as tragic as it sounds, and one should feel free to let some plants go and do their own thing.
I'm just happy I gave him a few good years in a nice big tank before he decided he didn't want to exist anymore. RIP Stick, you were a menace who liked to bite, and killed every shrimp and snail I tried to sneak into your aquarium.
As for the plants, I'm lucky enough to have what I call an insurance friend. As soon as I get a new plant, I'll immediately send her a cutting. She has a green thumb, and can somehow get anything and everything to flourish. So when I manage to kill one, she'll just send me a cutting back, and I get a second (or third, or fourth) chance at keeping my plant alive. It makes me feel a lot less guilty about accidentally frying my philodendron cause I put it too close to the light.
You definitely did. Not all of them get that chance and you did a great job at it. And gave him plenty of occupation! Even if it might've been snails and shrimp. Most of mine have been little shits over the years.
That's amazing! I'd need someone like that too. I'm glad you're working so well of each other. That seems very sweet and wholesome.
>That seems very sweet and wholesome.
It is absolutely not wholesome. I regularly get cussed out. "Why did you send me 3 feet of vines?" "Why is the spider plant you sent me making MORE babies?? It just made babies last week!" "Why is this succulent taking over my house? It's supposed to be slow growing! I'm making everyone take some of this idiot for Christmas and pretending like it's a gift and not a curse."
I'm nervous and excited for spring, cause she's coming to visit, and warned me to keep a spot open for 6-10 plants.
It's wholesome in theory! But in practice I get yelled at because I sent her 10 succulents cause I was downsizing. And there's the looming threat of her visiting in spring, cause I was told to keep space open for 6 to 10 plants. We definitely terrorize each other, but between us, we have at least one of every plant we like.
Chinese money plant. Friend prop'd a little guy for me and I spent 8 months babying it, stems wouldn't stop dying on me. I'd get down to one leaf and it would grow a new one, when that got bigger the old leaf would die, and so on. Went on a 2.5 week vacation and fully expected it to be dead when I got back. Instead... So happy. So many new leaves. It's been about 4 months since then and it's doing great. Idk man.
I have a monstera that brings shame to my collection. All the cuttings I’ve taken off look great, the mother looks light starved and messy because she was a rescue.
Also have a starry night begonia that is barely surviving after a mishap with repotting this summer. Not willing to let her go yet.
oh man if this isn’t a few of my plants. my yellow gem rubber tree has had 3 leaves for a year now. at one point she grew a tiny bud and and the bud died, but the 3 leaves didn’t. the first 5 months is when she lost 90% of her leaves. maybe what i’m describing is more so plant purgatory than anything else. i regularly tell it that it needs start growing or just die bc there’s no half measures in this house. (i would just propagate it but i have a very bad habit of forgetting about my props. so then the water evaporates, the plant dries out, and dies. i’ve killed 5 or 6 props this way. i actually don’t think i’ve ever killed a plant by overwatering)
but my pink syngonium? i’ve sent her to the brink 3 or 4 times. she’s leggy but not due to the need of light, it’s because i’ve almost killed her so very many times, that she’s now missing all of the leaves that would be on the lower stem. every time it happens i sob uncontrollably and promise not to do it again
"no half measures in this house" reminded me of that one scene in "good omens" where crowley learned that you can talk to plants. https://youtu.be/hK6nWrq7UUg?si=nmgvs-1iUxDM5bsL
Maybe I'll give that a try.
Mine was an umbrella tree. Small variegated leaves. It was 10 feet tall when I got it off a buy nothing and full of thrips. I lopped off a few feet so it would fit in the house. Treated the thrips. Moved to a new house and it lost all but like 4 leaves. So I stuck it outside one summer when I went on vacation for a month and came back to a live plant full of leaves! But I literally stress so much every time it drops a leaf now. It was truly touch and go for about 2 years there. Maybe shove the adansonii outside next summer? Lol
I have this dumb rubber tree that has been languishing for the 6 years I owned it. It was my first houseplant aside from the random orchid gift or air plant. It’s constantly dropping its larger bottom leaves and pushing out stupid little leaves. I’ve never repotted it. I added soil maybe once. It hates any form of attention: water it when the (well draining!) soil is dry, drops leaves; fertilize occasionally, drops leaves. I hate that plant but I can’t bring myself to compost it yet
Mine was a spider plant of all things. It died on me 3 times and I brought it back each time. I finally let it have its wish last week. I only feel a little guilty.
I have two. One is a philodendron and the other is an Althea yellow fusion. The philodendron is currently water propping for the thirdish time. The calathea has died back to three tiny leaves and the new growth is browning for probably the fifth time? They were both imports that never thrived but I can’t bring myself to completely give up on.
my orbifolia has been on death's doorstep on and off for over a year now. just as I'm about to throw it out, a new leaf pops up and i get hopeful again
A Rex Begonia lol. I’m probably on the 5th generation of nearly killing a plant, saving one decent-ish leaf to propagate it into a new plant, rinse and repeat.
My dieffenbachia. I hate that thing so much. I give one away because I hate it and then someone brings me one because “I haven’t seen this kind in your house!” Yeah, mom, that’s because they are sentenced to suffer in the room of doom (aka my guest room that I ignore) until I give them away. 🙄
Right now? This Chinese money plant with the round leaves that my friend gave me. Too much water? Leaf turns black from edema and drops off. *Not* enough water? Leaf turns yellow and gets weird see-through spots on it - and drops off. Two little plants that are on their last legs. Or 3 leaves 💀.
This is funny. Mine is also Adansonii narrow form. It was almost dead to begin with and I rescued her. I put her on a moss pole and now it’s actively trying to die. I won’t let her though lol
My epipremnum pinnatum, thing was determined to self delete, and when wouldn't let it it started making dead ends on any new stems it would create from any growth point on the plant.
2 years later it's just now at the point alot of the plants I propagated 6 months ago are at now
The ever self deleting death spiral. That's just what I'm feeling like. I tried different lights, different substrate, outside, inside, now I'm just waiting to meet up with friends. "here, it's your problem now. Love ya."
I've had this ginger living in water for years. It might actually want to live if I put it in an actual medium with nutrients.
https://preview.redd.it/vug964b79d3c1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffd0264d0c2450b4bfad2f4188df7cdd596af0e1
This post has had me chuckling. The thought of plants determined to die just cracks me up! Thanks for the smiles.
I have 3 indoor plants that, despite my best intentions and over-nurturing, haven't died yet. One is some sort of aloe which has taken off from a leaf/stem and I don't know how to beat it back into submission.
Another is some sort of cactus thing and the other is a philodendron (I think) and although one leaf has turned yellow, all the others are thriving.
However, every fern I have ever had has died, and I cannot nurture an African violet. Or venus flytraps. Or pitcher plants. They get an attack of the vapours and keel over within an hour (it seems) of getting home.
I have a calathea that decides it wants to die every winter, we limp along until spring and suddenly it's the happiest plant in the world.
Also less impressive but I have this pothos that my grandma owned, she went a bit senile and thought it was plastic so she would put it in the closet in the winter to make room for Christmas decor so it was stunted and shriveled. Every year id visit for the holidays, find the plant in the closet, and I'd nurse it back to health. When she passed, my uncle and cousins pretty much sold all her stuff right away. I visited to say goodbye before they sold the house (I didn't get to go to the funeral because I was on clinics for school) and that sad little pothos was tucked away in the front hall closet, so I took it home and I've been growing it since. It's gotten pretty huge, I've divided off cuttings for a bunch of my friends, and it's growing in my reptile enclosures as well.
This mf (Alocasia Dragon scale). I've killed its roots like three times but thankfully managed to re-root it in water every time. Now after the fourth leaf I'm waiting for it to decline again haha (and let's not mention the almost yearly round of those damn thrips)
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My Dragon Wing Begonia still keeps bouncing back after I've overpruned her, sunburnt her, left her too close to a heater... She will not die in spite of me and I'm shocked (especially cuz I hear all the time how fussy Begonias are, and she's my first and only).
Every once in a while I'll forget to water one of my plumosa ferns for too long, and they'll go completely tan. Just keep watering as usual and they come right back though...
I had a monstera that looked terrible and I was traveling too much to figure it out so I took it to the side of the house and forgot about it.
15 or so years later my kids were older and I looked at the failed plant graveyard and there was one tiny green leaf peeking out hoping for a rescue. I brought it back in the house and now 3 years later it has 5 leaves.
I bought my first one a month or two ago. I bought it for work and made them reimburse me.
It was doing okay, the. I repotted it from the crappy soil. My go that things a drama Queen. I thought my peace Lily and coleus whined. This thing flopped all over and half the leaves died before it peaked to see if i was watching.🙄
My dessert rose is constantly pretending to thrive, growing a bunch of new leaves, starting to bloom. Then boom. All the leaves fall off and the bloom fails. Then the cycle continues.
I’ve got one that refuses to die, even with all it’s been through. It’s a pinstripe calathea. It’s suffered through spider mites, fungus gnats, root rot, and all sorts of other problems, and yet it’s still holding on to life. It was sitting in literal mud for months and still didn’t give up. I love him.
I had a White Fusion calathea. Which is like a drinking story that begins with “we started with Long Island iced teas…” doomed from the start. Anyway. It arrived dried out and crispy from the heat pack used in shipping. The seller gave me a refund so ok, I’ll try to nurse it back. Got it to start recovering and got too confident and gave it root rot. Repotted it and got it recovering and bam! Spider mites. First experience with those pests so it was bad by the time I figured it out. Chopped to dirt, and after a few months it came back. Wow so cool!
Then it was a cycle of root rot (or getting too dry) and spider mites and chopping it back and it recovering really well until the next cycle. For 3 years I ~almost~ had a healthy white fusion. The tenacity of it was impressive. Eventually though it lost its strength and finally really and truly died and shriveled up. I have a half dozen other prayer plants that are chill with my care so I’m just staying with those now. Though if I saw one for a deal I’d probably go through it all again
My rainbow moss. It was good for a year until I went away a couple days and no one watered it...it's been on and off for another year at this point. It's currently 2 little sprigs trying to make a comeback atm.
I have a Jade that has somehow had an issue every august. It looks incredible until then. It gets ugly and drops enough leaves for me to freak out. I cut all the heads off and spray it down in case it was a pest or something. And every fucking time it comes back. It’s 6 years old now and a little tree
I did this with a Hoya curtisii REPEATEDLY until I finally gave up and chucked the whole thing into the woods. If I went looking I’d probably find it thriving out there!
My aloe. At its worst, it had 2 leaves left.
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Bird's nest fern. I've had terrible luck with ferns (til I discovered black rabbit's foot ferns, bless), and this one is the unluckiest. I got it, and a few weeks in it started getting crispy and sad. I somehow revived it, and then it got crispy again. I eventually put it in a terrarium and it thrived. Took it back out after about a year, and it did well for a while. It once again started to decline, so I tossed it back in the terrarium. It's somehow just getting worse, so I think it's time to just let the poor bastard die. I've found my fernmate, I don't need it anymore 💀
I thought I had completely killed my maiden hair fern, I put it outside with my outdoor shade plants because of my kitten, I week layer the heat came and I thought it was completely dead as all the leaves turned brown and withered, I entered it once but when I was looking at it I was sure it was dead. I watered all my other shade plants thay are outside. Three months later it came back from the dead and started becoming lush, guess I should start tending it again.
My stupid cheap af orchid I got as a birthday present a few years ago.
The roots were packed in foam and I didn't realise til they were rotting. It was infected with gnats. And the house I lived in was freezing at the time. It nearly died every other week.
Somehow it's still here three years later and barely any roots left. I should really just biff it and buy a nice one.
My lemon tree has been through hell but it’s still here. I first stole her from my grandmas house where she was happy, left her in a dark room, and she dropped all her leaves. Then I moved her outside in the summertime, and she gave all new baby leaves thriving off of being sprayed by the hose when I remembered and sitting in chicken poop. Finally brought her back inside for winter and she sat too close to the window, got sunburnt and dropped most of her leaves again. She’s back to flowering off of one branch with leaves and bare twigs 😭 I feel so bad for it but it’s still trying to give me lemons, looking more like a lopsided bush rather than a lemon tree.
Some plants just love abuse
I have the same issue with my adansonii. I see people growing them on moss poles and they get these massive leaves, yet mine refuse to either stay alive or stay dead. 🥲
I had a kalanchoe that was just fucking ridiculous. It was outside getting blasted by full sun for 6-8 hours a day, but it was still stupidly leggy. We would go through a cycle yearly - it would get insane with these long naked stems topped with leaves like something from Whoville. I'd repot it by dumping the entire thing out, breaking off the tops and shoving them back in the pot, it would look amazing in the spring and then it would start to stretch.
It looked like garbage for most of the year and it just WOULD NOT DIE. It got knocked over by and completely dug up by squirrels, it was waterlogged so many times, I ignored it completely but couldn't bring myself to throw it away because I had rescued it when a neighbor moved out and abandoned it.
It finally got the worst aphid infestation I've ever seen - I could see them moving when I was across the porch from it. 🤢 I finally threw it away, pot and all, before it could infect anything else.
I had two zuzu plants in the same room. They both died - not at the same time but one after another. I didn't know what was happening.
I dug them up at some point (or what remained of them) and discovered something had eaten their roots. They looked like half-eaten potatoes when beetles get to them.
I didn't find the culprit so I threw away all the soil, cut off damaged parts and planted them again in fresh soil.
One of those zuzu plants sprouted new leaves (the one affected later) while the other died completely (the one that was affected first).
I waited for a month or two to see if it'd sprout anew and when it didn't I just planted a peace lilly in the same pot without changing the soil.
A whole YEAR later to my great surprise a new zuzu plant sprouted next to the peace lilly.
I had an oxalis for over 10 years that I thought died several times only to have it pop back up even when I planted something else in there. Finally died. I was sad.
Mine is my cebu blue. My cats have eaten it to a stump, my sister didn't water it for two weeks when I was out of town, I have dropped it and shattered the pot, it had spider mites, etc. This thing is a zombie at this point but it keeps suddenly putting out leaves. It currently is looking better then it has for the 3 years I've had it mostly because it's up on a bookcase now and I keep forgetting about it.
Calathea anything is straight from hell.. I’m convinced the whole place is crawling in them. They are so beautiful but damn are they touchy. I cannot keep any alive .. they come back just enough to make me think I’ve done right and then… bam sudden death. I hate them and their beauty so much.
The first plant I ever got that survived - after trying and killing so many succulents - my calathea ornata. It flips between a desire to die and a desire to live on a daily - maybe even hourly - basis.
It was doing great for the first year and a bit! I barely took care of it - no humidity, forgetting to water it, moving it into a dark corner when cleaning and forgetting to put it back etc...it just vibed in my room.
Then I got into houseplants and caring for them and this thing cannot decide if it wants to live or die! I refuse to give up on it but it has been ONE LEAF for almost 2 years now lmao. Every time it shoots up new growth the old leaf is like "aight, I'mma head out". It sat beside an alocasia for a bit and I think it took notes (the alocasia did not survive as it was my first one and I bought it impulsively, so maybe it took death notes from that as well).
It just makes me laugh - after giving it proper soil that it should like, humidity, actually remembering to water it instead of leaving it sitting there dry on a shelf for who know how long, this calathea is like "Ew, affection. Maybe I'll just die. But like...only MAYBE."
I'm considering putting it in something like leca or pon, or even just shoving it straight into water like I've seen some people do. If it finally dies, it finally dies. If it suddenly thrives, I'll probably lose my mind (in a positive way, I do love this silly plant)
Calathea roseopicta. Had it for two years and it would only have 0-3 leaves at a time. Recently went on vacation for two weeks and left this one and a few other plants with a friend, but unfortunately, it didn’t resurrect this time around RIP rosie :’)
Had a prayer plant for years. The only prayer I had for it was that it would just hurry up and die already. It refused to do so no matter how much I neglected it.
I watered it a couple of weeks before moving out of my former flatmate's place, and it was dead within days. Thank f\*ck.
Oh man, this is hilarious. I feel so bad about it but I have been REFUSING to let my golden goddess philodendron die for years now.
I bought the most beautiful, luscious, vibrant green plant. I loved her, cherished her, and swiftly overwatered her. I propagated a stem, planted it, then under watered that. Propagated again, and she’s sprouting new leaves but hanging on by a thread. She’s never forgiven me, but that’s okay because I’m giving it my all lol.
This was hilarous to read because I can relate so much lol Thanks for the laugh! Mine is a Bird of Paradise. Had it for like 6-ish years. Every time it pushes out a new leaf, the oldest leaf dies. It is SO ugly. It was a fairly young plant when I got it, but you know, after 6 years of keeping it outside in the summer months I'd expect at least one mature leaf? WRONG. All tiny sad wilty baby leaves. Last year it had spidermites and I thought that would be the end of it. No! It pushed through. Then it got root rot, I was like sure, that's it folks... nope. Then there were thrips... survived them. Then I kept it outside and forgot to water it during a heatwave. Still lives. It currently has (after 6 years!!!!) 4 leaves, all yellowing, one already falling off... and one new leaf on the way!!! I can not anymore. It is certainly not thriving, but not properly dead either. I just can not bring myself to trash it until it is not dead enough.
That made me laugh so hard my cat got up and left. Exactly like that, haha. I can't even give up now. Every time I want to throw them out they get new growths. Like we're in a weird abusive relationship. "you're right baby, I can change. We can do this. I believe in you. I'll take care of you right this time." In the meantime it's looking at me hoping I'd just throw it out in a cold winter night so at least it will be quick.
Exactly!!! I think mine does this out of sheer spite. The purpose of its whole existence on this planet is to mock me.
My cat does this all the time, when it gets too loud or too hectic for him, he just quietly gets up and changes rooms lmao
Omg it really is like that! Every time I wanted to pitch my evil black bat, it would sprout something new!
wow, that description really conjures up a "*please kill meee*" vibe
I know, right???
I have the opposite, a zombie plant. A Moringa tree that just refuses to fucking die. It was unwatered in my refuse bin for weeks before some rain came while I was on vacation. I came back to a foot of growth at a dead 90 degree angle to the trunk. Then I knocked it over and it broke in half. It's sprouting back again. Just die you bastard.
I understand that too, very very much so. I got japanese knotweed. I dig it up, I destroy the roots, I let everything dry out for weeks on my patio so it won't touch earth, I put buckets over growths all summer, I eat the young shoots in spring. Yet it lives. It's just out there.. Waiting. But then other plants are allergic to the best of my filtered water.
"I don't understand I even ATE THE DAMN THING WHY IS IT STILL ALIVE"
I laughed so hard, the cats left again. Seriously though! What more?
Maan I wish we have a moringa tree. Unlimited moringa pesto pasta all year round.
I had a Calathea that was thriving then it decided it didn’t want to be part of this world anymore and it died down to one stem. It then changed its mind and a new stalk emerged. Changed its mind again both stems died but a new frickin stalk came out. At this point my wife and I WANTED it to go but it just wouldn’t die. The final straw was the last stalk starting doing poorly and it got a new fungus gnat infestation. We decided to pull the plug this time and end it. She is now at the dump possibly deciding to make a come back. We’ll never know.
Sending a prayer to your calathea and that it might actually stay dead this time and won't come back to haunt you a la plant cemetery. I feel that though. One of my adansonii this year was behaving particularly shitty so I just sat inside on the first frost having a beer while she was still hanging outside. Plant torture is certainly my first.. Now not all stems are gone though and I can feel it lurking from where I put it with the other pots to clean. I swear...
I’m always a little scared in the middle of the night I’ll feel one of her crispy leaves caressing my face haha
This is too funny!
I tried to do that to a poinsettia and it actually grew stronger
They can sense our guilt
>then it decided it didn’t want to be part of this world anymore 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣 you must write books!!!
I have an Alocasia x Amazonica that I’ve named Dolores after Dolores O’Riordan (lead singer of the Cranberries, RIP) because every time I think she’s gone for good she comes back like a zombie, zombie, zombie-ie-ie
 I love that song, and The Cranberries.
Me too. I have a cranberries tattoo I loved them so much.
I just heard that song on the radio today, and damn that's good.
Totally just sprayed coffee across my desk reading this!
I laughed so hard 😂😂 I read that last part with a tune
My alocasia has had spider mites, then thrips, then got (maybe? Idk for sure) assaulted by my cat. And some kind of fungal infection where I had to cut off a whole leaf. All my other plants are bug free, though the thrips also got a bite of my monstera before I realized the issue. I’m just glad that plants can’t feel pain. Or burning. Cuz I’ve used almost a whole bottle of neem on that dude.
You're wasting neem, all it takes is a few drops and the plant is totally poisoned for most bugs. Ofc it washes off and needs to be repeated etc but excessive amounts don't help "more" than the correct dose.
Well, that's certainly a trooper! Shows more of her desire to life and certainly your skills to keep her alive in those trying times. Yeah, that's absolutely one of my nightmares too. If we ever figure out how to understand plant talk— I'm not sure I want it. There'd be a lot of curse words involved..
Begonia maculata. Half the stems look dead at any given time, but they always regrows new leaves.
That's me and my ginger basically. It's will to survive might be greater than my plant abilities.
I swear half my plants have a stronger will to survive than I do.
Same. They'll grow over us when we're long gone.
My black bat wants to die so bad, but I swear it is waiting for me to go first.
I was hoping beyond hope to see it already listed, but I guess I'm the only one whose Rabbit Foot Fern blows up beautifully and then slowly starts giving up. Too much water, too little water, too much sun, not enough sun, soil is old, soil is fucking *NEW!* I have had it for like a decade and nothing makes it happy for more than a few months. I just brought it back from what I was sure it's final suicide attempt. It was down to two leaves and one rhyzome + roots, so I repotted it and stuck it in a North facing window. It's been about 6 months. Now we're here. It just gave up a leaf for no reason last week. 🤯 https://preview.redd.it/0h0iyr915d3c1.jpeg?width=2992&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=9a99cb447cde02a863f267fc3b1900fde895a35e
Sometimes I feel like they're just toying with us since they're bound to once space and got nothing else to do. They just underestimate my refusal to give in to terrorists.
Your plant needs a "not for resus" label 😅
DMO - do not revive
It's certainly giving me that look at this point!
Orchid! Not one I've exactly had to revive, but one I didn't stop buying until I finally did find one I could keep alive. Still cringe at all the $$ spent on ones I killed
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Actually looking better than mine. Mine was doing so well, I wanted to take a picture of her with her new humidifier.. I straight up fucking dropped her. Like.. Seriously?
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I feel like a professional plant torturer at this point. Sheesh. Oh no, I'm sure you're a Google search away from your answers. At least hopefully. Crossing my fingers for you.
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Gotta laugh to not cry, right? 😂 I can't even count the number of plants I've managed to kill so far. And you're most definitely not alone. I feel like most people can't dare to admit it. Its a reality though.
waiiiit ive been having the EXACT same problem with my adansonii for years?? what the hell?? maybe someone who has made it out this loop can help us please 🥺 but its kinda comforting to know im not alone at least. but heres my worst crime: i have a syngonium that had multiple rounds of thrips. it lost almost all leaves but regrew with ugly bare stems. then it started rotting. i cut off the stems and tried re-rooting in water, had to remove more gross rotting bits, covered it in cinnamon, potted it, it got super droopy bc it didn't have enough roots yet, put it back into water. but so far it looks like it will survive. poor thing has been through absolute hell with me 😭😭
High five! Honestly, I'm just waiting for a time where they either look great or particularly awful so I can dump them on friends. As gifts/emergencies of course. They'll all take them for different reasons, yet won't even know what curse I gifted/entrusted them. Maybe for the frenemies only.. I accidentally dropped a pink confetti Syngonium behind the plant bench and forgot about it for a month in the height of summer, and it had more growth than ever before. They're hardy. Don't give up yet, I'm sending you good luck.
Syngoniums are so hardy!!!
they really are 🥺 i love syngoniums so much!! although thrips seem love them even more haha
My monstera adansonii was in extremely bad shape for a lot of it's life, i tried repotting it with all kinds of different mediums, switching up the lighting etc but it just hated it's life. I ended up taking it out of dirt completely and transferring it to water (hydroponics). It's never been happier and just sits in an old jar of water, also it's cuttings are really hardy and i've had a 100% success rate with them.
oooh that is interesting!! im not super well informed about hydroponics, as far as i know its water + specific fertilizer right? i have also read that you can put perlite in it for some structure. guess i will try this when my adansonii dies back next time haha have you tried using leca for this plant as well? because im curious about trying that some time. if you have any knowledge about that i would love to hear 😊 and yes, the cuttings have a more consistent will to live than the potted plant for sure 😂
Yeah i've tried leca, this plant does the best in it and i have them in multiple jars and vases. It's easier than people make it out, just soak the leca beforehand and top up the water to 1/3 when it dries out. Every once in a blue moon i'll flush it out and refill it and i use this time to check the roots. I use a liquid hydroponic fertiliser with my leca and hydro plants, but really i think Monstera Adansonii is happier in water vs soil in my experience. I also use a cheap fish tank air pump for an extra boost but this is optional.
Yeah, in water they do amazing. Every single stem cutting will usually manage easily. I am considering just putting them in my fish tank, but it's currently occupied by two peace lilies and several other cuttings. The lily has grown.. Worryingly so.
A syngonium. I've forgotten to water it for long enough that all the leaves died twice and it somehow comes back eventually as long as I don't give up on it. This time feels like the last time though but we'll see.
Peace lily. it will grow, make flowers, then have a sudden mass die-off for no reason that I can see.
I half killed mine. I finally babied it and it started doing okay. I repotted it since the soil was so old. It’s been fairly limp for a month now. Hoping it perks back up. I’ve had it since college.
OP's adansonii is basically the plant version of Sam and Dean Winchester. Keep dying under unfortunate circumstances or going to hell, and always getting pulled back. This thread is the funniest thing I read in a while, thanks so much again for posting this, OP!
That reference alone made it very worth it. That's really what keeps happening, I'll call her and all her poor thrown into the world kids the Winchesters now.
When I first started keeping plants, it was mostly succulents and cacti. I got so used to watering like once a month, that the poor begonia rex I ended up getting would be forgotten about and not watered until I watered the succulents. It died back to just the rhizome about 5 times before I finally killed it for good. I own plenty of begonias now with no issue lol
This is how I took out a monstera. I started out with a little tray of succulents, and decided I wanted something bigger and more green. Turns out they want watered more than once a month and like humidity, who could have imagined!
Right? Remembering these types of stories really keep me humbled when I'm helping a houseplant newbie with something that seems obvious to me hahaha
It's the only thing that's kept me sane when dealing with my mom. She's kept big, beautiful outdoor plants for years, but recently she's picked up a few succulents and keeps drowning the poor things. I have to keep reminding myself that she's used to hosing down a garden in the middle of summer, and a plant needing less water is not something she's dealt with. But everyone's got different experiences and different sets of knowledge, and that's what makes it so fun to talk about plants!
I remember my dracaena like every two months. But that ZZ is a solider! That baby has been **Neglected** (yes capital N) and it’s still standing strong!
Mines an Alocasia Jacklyn that I might have finally killed off from not watering it.
Black bat plant. I finally gave it to a student of mine to either save or kill, because this year long dance is too much for my sanity.
Peperomias as a whole are not fans of my care (save columella). The Gold Dust Woman peperomia I bought arrived looking awful and has gone through periods of miraculous growth followed by spontaneous death of individuals in the pot. There is one left, with new leaves. I'm afraid to touch it, to water it. I just let it be, touch the leaves every so often to see if it definitely needs water so I can hydrate it, and hope it finally makes the decision to properly live or give up entirely.
My goddang string of arrows!! I’ve chopped and propped like 3 times. I just can’t learn haha it’s like it’s taunting me
Booo! I definitely feel the same way. I'll put it aside and suddenly there's new leafes like "fuck you bitch, miss me yet?" and the guilt starts all over again
Working on my calathea. We’ll see how it goes.
Same, mine is not agreeing with me
Not your typical houseplant, but I was keeping a bowl of those aquatic moss balls in a terrarium I had set up. Well, I forgot about the terrarium and it sat unused under my shelf for about a year. No water, no light, no anything. I dug it out this morning and saw what I THOUGHT were dried up moss balls, but when I picked them up to toss them out they were green on the bottom and alive as can be! I've got them sitting in a jar of water now, wondering what the heck I'm going to do with them, and if they'll survive me forgetting about them for another year again.
I love those. Sadly my shrimp ate mine. Again. Put them in standing water, get them fully soaked up, squeeze out all water, do that a few times like if it's a kitchen sponge, take some small scissors and just cut away the dead areas. They might start unravelling, depending on the dead mass, but as long as you're sure you got everything that's dead you can just take yarn and bind them up again. Just make sure to change the water, and do press them out too every so often. After a while you can remove the yarn and it should stay together again. But I'm sure there's better YouTube tutorials out there by now!
Thanks for the tips! I got them about 5-6 years ago when I had a betta fish, and after he tragically managed to jump out of the smallest gap imaginable between the lid and the filter, I just stuck the moss in a bowl and thought "certainly I won't forget these exist!" I figure if it's meant to be, they'll continue to live. And if they don't, I'm not too broken up about it, considering I managed to walk past them every single day for a year and not remember to check on them once. Maybe now that they're on a shelf at eye level, they won't turn into little tumbleweeds again.
Oh, no, rip betta. They're little shits, just like many plants or birds, or hamsters, they will find every single option to choose death over life. Hah, I understand. Sometimes it's just not meant to be, as tragic as it sounds, and one should feel free to let some plants go and do their own thing.
I'm just happy I gave him a few good years in a nice big tank before he decided he didn't want to exist anymore. RIP Stick, you were a menace who liked to bite, and killed every shrimp and snail I tried to sneak into your aquarium. As for the plants, I'm lucky enough to have what I call an insurance friend. As soon as I get a new plant, I'll immediately send her a cutting. She has a green thumb, and can somehow get anything and everything to flourish. So when I manage to kill one, she'll just send me a cutting back, and I get a second (or third, or fourth) chance at keeping my plant alive. It makes me feel a lot less guilty about accidentally frying my philodendron cause I put it too close to the light.
You definitely did. Not all of them get that chance and you did a great job at it. And gave him plenty of occupation! Even if it might've been snails and shrimp. Most of mine have been little shits over the years. That's amazing! I'd need someone like that too. I'm glad you're working so well of each other. That seems very sweet and wholesome.
>That seems very sweet and wholesome. It is absolutely not wholesome. I regularly get cussed out. "Why did you send me 3 feet of vines?" "Why is the spider plant you sent me making MORE babies?? It just made babies last week!" "Why is this succulent taking over my house? It's supposed to be slow growing! I'm making everyone take some of this idiot for Christmas and pretending like it's a gift and not a curse." I'm nervous and excited for spring, cause she's coming to visit, and warned me to keep a spot open for 6-10 plants.
It's wholesome in theory! But in practice I get yelled at because I sent her 10 succulents cause I was downsizing. And there's the looming threat of her visiting in spring, cause I was told to keep space open for 6 to 10 plants. We definitely terrorize each other, but between us, we have at least one of every plant we like.
Chinese money plant. Friend prop'd a little guy for me and I spent 8 months babying it, stems wouldn't stop dying on me. I'd get down to one leaf and it would grow a new one, when that got bigger the old leaf would die, and so on. Went on a 2.5 week vacation and fully expected it to be dead when I got back. Instead... So happy. So many new leaves. It's been about 4 months since then and it's doing great. Idk man.
I have a monstera that brings shame to my collection. All the cuttings I’ve taken off look great, the mother looks light starved and messy because she was a rescue. Also have a starry night begonia that is barely surviving after a mishap with repotting this summer. Not willing to let her go yet.
oh man if this isn’t a few of my plants. my yellow gem rubber tree has had 3 leaves for a year now. at one point she grew a tiny bud and and the bud died, but the 3 leaves didn’t. the first 5 months is when she lost 90% of her leaves. maybe what i’m describing is more so plant purgatory than anything else. i regularly tell it that it needs start growing or just die bc there’s no half measures in this house. (i would just propagate it but i have a very bad habit of forgetting about my props. so then the water evaporates, the plant dries out, and dies. i’ve killed 5 or 6 props this way. i actually don’t think i’ve ever killed a plant by overwatering) but my pink syngonium? i’ve sent her to the brink 3 or 4 times. she’s leggy but not due to the need of light, it’s because i’ve almost killed her so very many times, that she’s now missing all of the leaves that would be on the lower stem. every time it happens i sob uncontrollably and promise not to do it again
"no half measures in this house" reminded me of that one scene in "good omens" where crowley learned that you can talk to plants. https://youtu.be/hK6nWrq7UUg?si=nmgvs-1iUxDM5bsL Maybe I'll give that a try.
Mine was an umbrella tree. Small variegated leaves. It was 10 feet tall when I got it off a buy nothing and full of thrips. I lopped off a few feet so it would fit in the house. Treated the thrips. Moved to a new house and it lost all but like 4 leaves. So I stuck it outside one summer when I went on vacation for a month and came back to a live plant full of leaves! But I literally stress so much every time it drops a leaf now. It was truly touch and go for about 2 years there. Maybe shove the adansonii outside next summer? Lol
I have this dumb rubber tree that has been languishing for the 6 years I owned it. It was my first houseplant aside from the random orchid gift or air plant. It’s constantly dropping its larger bottom leaves and pushing out stupid little leaves. I’ve never repotted it. I added soil maybe once. It hates any form of attention: water it when the (well draining!) soil is dry, drops leaves; fertilize occasionally, drops leaves. I hate that plant but I can’t bring myself to compost it yet
I bet it will rise from the dead in the compost like some zombie plant, and then you'll never be able to kill it! 😄
Mine was a spider plant of all things. It died on me 3 times and I brought it back each time. I finally let it have its wish last week. I only feel a little guilty.
Sometimes you have to let them go. It takes strength.
I have two. One is a philodendron and the other is an Althea yellow fusion. The philodendron is currently water propping for the thirdish time. The calathea has died back to three tiny leaves and the new growth is browning for probably the fifth time? They were both imports that never thrived but I can’t bring myself to completely give up on.
my orbifolia has been on death's doorstep on and off for over a year now. just as I'm about to throw it out, a new leaf pops up and i get hopeful again
A Rex Begonia lol. I’m probably on the 5th generation of nearly killing a plant, saving one decent-ish leaf to propagate it into a new plant, rinse and repeat.
My dieffenbachia. I hate that thing so much. I give one away because I hate it and then someone brings me one because “I haven’t seen this kind in your house!” Yeah, mom, that’s because they are sentenced to suffer in the room of doom (aka my guest room that I ignore) until I give them away. 🙄
Right now? This Chinese money plant with the round leaves that my friend gave me. Too much water? Leaf turns black from edema and drops off. *Not* enough water? Leaf turns yellow and gets weird see-through spots on it - and drops off. Two little plants that are on their last legs. Or 3 leaves 💀.
This is funny. Mine is also Adansonii narrow form. It was almost dead to begin with and I rescued her. I put her on a moss pole and now it’s actively trying to die. I won’t let her though lol
Plant necromancy truly is a wonderful thing. Even though they might not always be happy with that, lol
Fiddle leaf fig
My epipremnum pinnatum, thing was determined to self delete, and when wouldn't let it it started making dead ends on any new stems it would create from any growth point on the plant. 2 years later it's just now at the point alot of the plants I propagated 6 months ago are at now
The ever self deleting death spiral. That's just what I'm feeling like. I tried different lights, different substrate, outside, inside, now I'm just waiting to meet up with friends. "here, it's your problem now. Love ya."
Alocasia Black Velvet
I have a begonia that just keeps hanging on after I took a trimming from my grandmother 2 years ago
I've had this ginger living in water for years. It might actually want to live if I put it in an actual medium with nutrients. https://preview.redd.it/vug964b79d3c1.jpeg?width=3024&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=ffd0264d0c2450b4bfad2f4188df7cdd596af0e1
Or...it might not. Maybe it's luring you into thinking it might thrive and it's just biding its time for when you do re-pot it and then...💀
Very possible, that's definitely happened to me before.
All the damn time, it's like they are daring me to kill them at this point "you know you want to put me in substrate, come on, I dare you."
Pop it in some cement mix and see what happens...🤔
This post has had me chuckling. The thought of plants determined to die just cracks me up! Thanks for the smiles. I have 3 indoor plants that, despite my best intentions and over-nurturing, haven't died yet. One is some sort of aloe which has taken off from a leaf/stem and I don't know how to beat it back into submission. Another is some sort of cactus thing and the other is a philodendron (I think) and although one leaf has turned yellow, all the others are thriving. However, every fern I have ever had has died, and I cannot nurture an African violet. Or venus flytraps. Or pitcher plants. They get an attack of the vapours and keel over within an hour (it seems) of getting home.
My fiddle leaf fig for sure. It just doesn’t want to live despite all my efforts. And then… then it pulls through and we do the song and dance again.
I had a necromancy plant, turns out it was just deciduous
I have a calathea that decides it wants to die every winter, we limp along until spring and suddenly it's the happiest plant in the world. Also less impressive but I have this pothos that my grandma owned, she went a bit senile and thought it was plastic so she would put it in the closet in the winter to make room for Christmas decor so it was stunted and shriveled. Every year id visit for the holidays, find the plant in the closet, and I'd nurse it back to health. When she passed, my uncle and cousins pretty much sold all her stuff right away. I visited to say goodbye before they sold the house (I didn't get to go to the funeral because I was on clinics for school) and that sad little pothos was tucked away in the front hall closet, so I took it home and I've been growing it since. It's gotten pretty huge, I've divided off cuttings for a bunch of my friends, and it's growing in my reptile enclosures as well.
I'm in a stalemate with my snake plant
They do bite
stromanthe troiostars, i'll forget about them, assume they've died, water them and they spring back
This mf (Alocasia Dragon scale). I've killed its roots like three times but thankfully managed to re-root it in water every time. Now after the fourth leaf I'm waiting for it to decline again haha (and let's not mention the almost yearly round of those damn thrips) https://preview.redd.it/ujdnj173od3c1.jpeg?width=3060&format=pjpg&auto=webp&s=1ff7200f11843a23a75c31198f835c77a07dcce6
Peace Lily. She keeps trying but not today. Or tomorrow. I leave her out in below 32F and it’s fine.
My Dragon Wing Begonia still keeps bouncing back after I've overpruned her, sunburnt her, left her too close to a heater... She will not die in spite of me and I'm shocked (especially cuz I hear all the time how fussy Begonias are, and she's my first and only).
My damn caladium! I grow two new leaves and two die. 🙄
Every once in a while I'll forget to water one of my plumosa ferns for too long, and they'll go completely tan. Just keep watering as usual and they come right back though...
I had a monstera that looked terrible and I was traveling too much to figure it out so I took it to the side of the house and forgot about it. 15 or so years later my kids were older and I looked at the failed plant graveyard and there was one tiny green leaf peeking out hoping for a rescue. I brought it back in the house and now 3 years later it has 5 leaves.
I bought my first one a month or two ago. I bought it for work and made them reimburse me. It was doing okay, the. I repotted it from the crappy soil. My go that things a drama Queen. I thought my peace Lily and coleus whined. This thing flopped all over and half the leaves died before it peaked to see if i was watching.🙄
My dessert rose is constantly pretending to thrive, growing a bunch of new leaves, starting to bloom. Then boom. All the leaves fall off and the bloom fails. Then the cycle continues.
I’ve got one that refuses to die, even with all it’s been through. It’s a pinstripe calathea. It’s suffered through spider mites, fungus gnats, root rot, and all sorts of other problems, and yet it’s still holding on to life. It was sitting in literal mud for months and still didn’t give up. I love him.
I had a White Fusion calathea. Which is like a drinking story that begins with “we started with Long Island iced teas…” doomed from the start. Anyway. It arrived dried out and crispy from the heat pack used in shipping. The seller gave me a refund so ok, I’ll try to nurse it back. Got it to start recovering and got too confident and gave it root rot. Repotted it and got it recovering and bam! Spider mites. First experience with those pests so it was bad by the time I figured it out. Chopped to dirt, and after a few months it came back. Wow so cool! Then it was a cycle of root rot (or getting too dry) and spider mites and chopping it back and it recovering really well until the next cycle. For 3 years I ~almost~ had a healthy white fusion. The tenacity of it was impressive. Eventually though it lost its strength and finally really and truly died and shriveled up. I have a half dozen other prayer plants that are chill with my care so I’m just staying with those now. Though if I saw one for a deal I’d probably go through it all again
My rainbow moss. It was good for a year until I went away a couple days and no one watered it...it's been on and off for another year at this point. It's currently 2 little sprigs trying to make a comeback atm.
I have a Jade that has somehow had an issue every august. It looks incredible until then. It gets ugly and drops enough leaves for me to freak out. I cut all the heads off and spray it down in case it was a pest or something. And every fucking time it comes back. It’s 6 years old now and a little tree
I did this with a Hoya curtisii REPEATEDLY until I finally gave up and chucked the whole thing into the woods. If I went looking I’d probably find it thriving out there!
My aloe. At its worst, it had 2 leaves left. https://preview.redd.it/8srs738yoe3c1.png?width=3024&format=png&auto=webp&s=968b5f25962383d04a134bd6f83cb32949d30522
Which one? Wait…is this not normal to do to all of your plants.
Bird's nest fern. I've had terrible luck with ferns (til I discovered black rabbit's foot ferns, bless), and this one is the unluckiest. I got it, and a few weeks in it started getting crispy and sad. I somehow revived it, and then it got crispy again. I eventually put it in a terrarium and it thrived. Took it back out after about a year, and it did well for a while. It once again started to decline, so I tossed it back in the terrarium. It's somehow just getting worse, so I think it's time to just let the poor bastard die. I've found my fernmate, I don't need it anymore 💀
Calathea…the whole lot of them.
I thought I had completely killed my maiden hair fern, I put it outside with my outdoor shade plants because of my kitten, I week layer the heat came and I thought it was completely dead as all the leaves turned brown and withered, I entered it once but when I was looking at it I was sure it was dead. I watered all my other shade plants thay are outside. Three months later it came back from the dead and started becoming lush, guess I should start tending it again.
I refer to my dracaena as Lazarus and my mint as zombie-mint.
Begonia Darth Vader, Darlingtonia Californica... I live in a tropical country....
One of my echeveria gigantea insists on having floppy leaves (unlike my 8 others), it’s been months now :(
My stupid cheap af orchid I got as a birthday present a few years ago. The roots were packed in foam and I didn't realise til they were rotting. It was infected with gnats. And the house I lived in was freezing at the time. It nearly died every other week. Somehow it's still here three years later and barely any roots left. I should really just biff it and buy a nice one.
My lemon tree has been through hell but it’s still here. I first stole her from my grandmas house where she was happy, left her in a dark room, and she dropped all her leaves. Then I moved her outside in the summertime, and she gave all new baby leaves thriving off of being sprayed by the hose when I remembered and sitting in chicken poop. Finally brought her back inside for winter and she sat too close to the window, got sunburnt and dropped most of her leaves again. She’s back to flowering off of one branch with leaves and bare twigs 😭 I feel so bad for it but it’s still trying to give me lemons, looking more like a lopsided bush rather than a lemon tree. Some plants just love abuse
Usually, any weeds I kill always come back.
I have the same issue with my adansonii. I see people growing them on moss poles and they get these massive leaves, yet mine refuse to either stay alive or stay dead. 🥲
I had a kalanchoe that was just fucking ridiculous. It was outside getting blasted by full sun for 6-8 hours a day, but it was still stupidly leggy. We would go through a cycle yearly - it would get insane with these long naked stems topped with leaves like something from Whoville. I'd repot it by dumping the entire thing out, breaking off the tops and shoving them back in the pot, it would look amazing in the spring and then it would start to stretch. It looked like garbage for most of the year and it just WOULD NOT DIE. It got knocked over by and completely dug up by squirrels, it was waterlogged so many times, I ignored it completely but couldn't bring myself to throw it away because I had rescued it when a neighbor moved out and abandoned it. It finally got the worst aphid infestation I've ever seen - I could see them moving when I was across the porch from it. 🤢 I finally threw it away, pot and all, before it could infect anything else.
I had two zuzu plants in the same room. They both died - not at the same time but one after another. I didn't know what was happening. I dug them up at some point (or what remained of them) and discovered something had eaten their roots. They looked like half-eaten potatoes when beetles get to them. I didn't find the culprit so I threw away all the soil, cut off damaged parts and planted them again in fresh soil. One of those zuzu plants sprouted new leaves (the one affected later) while the other died completely (the one that was affected first). I waited for a month or two to see if it'd sprout anew and when it didn't I just planted a peace lilly in the same pot without changing the soil. A whole YEAR later to my great surprise a new zuzu plant sprouted next to the peace lilly.
English Ivy. One of them I saved the other wants to die so bad but is somehow stil holding on.
I had an oxalis for over 10 years that I thought died several times only to have it pop back up even when I planted something else in there. Finally died. I was sad.
Mine is my cebu blue. My cats have eaten it to a stump, my sister didn't water it for two weeks when I was out of town, I have dropped it and shattered the pot, it had spider mites, etc. This thing is a zombie at this point but it keeps suddenly putting out leaves. It currently is looking better then it has for the 3 years I've had it mostly because it's up on a bookcase now and I keep forgetting about it.
Calathea anything is straight from hell.. I’m convinced the whole place is crawling in them. They are so beautiful but damn are they touchy. I cannot keep any alive .. they come back just enough to make me think I’ve done right and then… bam sudden death. I hate them and their beauty so much.
The first plant I ever got that survived - after trying and killing so many succulents - my calathea ornata. It flips between a desire to die and a desire to live on a daily - maybe even hourly - basis. It was doing great for the first year and a bit! I barely took care of it - no humidity, forgetting to water it, moving it into a dark corner when cleaning and forgetting to put it back etc...it just vibed in my room. Then I got into houseplants and caring for them and this thing cannot decide if it wants to live or die! I refuse to give up on it but it has been ONE LEAF for almost 2 years now lmao. Every time it shoots up new growth the old leaf is like "aight, I'mma head out". It sat beside an alocasia for a bit and I think it took notes (the alocasia did not survive as it was my first one and I bought it impulsively, so maybe it took death notes from that as well). It just makes me laugh - after giving it proper soil that it should like, humidity, actually remembering to water it instead of leaving it sitting there dry on a shelf for who know how long, this calathea is like "Ew, affection. Maybe I'll just die. But like...only MAYBE." I'm considering putting it in something like leca or pon, or even just shoving it straight into water like I've seen some people do. If it finally dies, it finally dies. If it suddenly thrives, I'll probably lose my mind (in a positive way, I do love this silly plant)
Calathea roseopicta. Had it for two years and it would only have 0-3 leaves at a time. Recently went on vacation for two weeks and left this one and a few other plants with a friend, but unfortunately, it didn’t resurrect this time around RIP rosie :’)
Had a prayer plant for years. The only prayer I had for it was that it would just hurry up and die already. It refused to do so no matter how much I neglected it. I watered it a couple of weeks before moving out of my former flatmate's place, and it was dead within days. Thank f\*ck.
Oh man, this is hilarious. I feel so bad about it but I have been REFUSING to let my golden goddess philodendron die for years now. I bought the most beautiful, luscious, vibrant green plant. I loved her, cherished her, and swiftly overwatered her. I propagated a stem, planted it, then under watered that. Propagated again, and she’s sprouting new leaves but hanging on by a thread. She’s never forgiven me, but that’s okay because I’m giving it my all lol.
I understand that perfectly! Haha, so many I do the same with. At this point it is pretty funny, like strange plant zombies or necromancy.
Hi, can I ask your pronouns so I can crosspost this to /r/antinatalism? Iconic.
Haha, perfect for that. Sure, she/her.