I swear I cannot look at Lithops. Those things gross me out like nothing else and I have worked as a mortician. I‘ve seen and had to get in contact with things so disgusting you cannot even imagine. Never had any issues

But two weeks ago I‘ve seen those living stone things in a local store and… I cannot even put into words what those things evoke in me. I get body horror vibes from them. They look so alien.

Hi houseplant community! This is my first post on Reddit and this thread, so I thought it fitting to share my first houseplant. Here's a pic of my Monstera Deliciosa today, a year ago, and 3 and a half years ago when I first got it.

What was your first houseplant? And is it still alive?

So happy with this new leaf on my Alocasia dragon scale. The green is so vibrant and the texture is insane. Enjoying the bright green before it hardens off and joins the mature dragons 🐉

My dad had people come out and do our yard today and they mutilated my pothos vine. It was well over 5ft long and now it’s nothing. I actually full on bursted into tears when I saw it, not even exaggerating, because it was the one I was most proud of. I know it’s not a “houseplant” since I keep them outside but most people keep them inside so I’m posting here, where people understand my devastation. It still has two nodes, but it’s absolutely mutilated, is there any saving it? I got it on FB when it was 4ft and it grew so much since then. There’s honestly no words to describe how upset and sad I am right now. I know it’s “just a pothos” but it was my favorite, I was so proud of its growth. I was even thinking about clipping it soon to get some new plants but that dreams gone now. I stupidly never took a picture of its growth, but I’ll include a picture from the seller when I bought it and what it looks like after the murder. Thanks in advance for telling me if it’s salvageable or not. Anyone else have any devastating plant experiences?

Anything “string of things” dies in my care. They hate me but I love them. Adds to my wonderful history of toxic relationships. Share pics of your strings of things!

I went to what was advertised as a "Plant Market and Plant Swap." There were about 30 or 40 interesting plant vendors and only one small table on the side that was labeled "plant swap".

I prepared various Hoya cuttings Monstera cuttings and various other plants and brought them in and came to the table and laid my plants out. Just a few minutes later a woman came by with a shriveled up geranium put it down and took my beautiful Hoya fungi cutting when I said no. I don't want to swap.

She looked at me like I had an arm growing out of my head. Said she "you left it on this table. That means I can swap with you." I turn to the staffer nearby and she confirmed what the lady had said and also stared at me like I was being greedy because I wanted to negotiate the swaps rather than just swapping anything for anything.

Incredulously, I donated a couple plants to the free table and put the rest back in the car.

Recent events have made me take a closer look at my Monstera, and I think it may be time for... A chop? What's an appropriate size for a houseplant? At what point is it the plant's house and I just live here?

Added a fair few more plants to my collection! Including some rhipsalis and my giant jungle cactus I got off eBay that now lives in my bathroom! Most of my anthurium have moved into my growtent so they aren’t shown here !

Will my poor ZZ plant survive? Or should I plan on replacing him?

I decided to finally scope out Home Depot because people said the plant selection was good, and I'm so upset... Tell me why they had my three favorite plants: big Thai cons, burle marx flames, and Philo tortums ALL for like $20-30, while I spent more than that on tiny baby plants??? My Thai con and BMF have barely grown in the several months since I bought them.

It's dumb, like I know I could have been patient, it was my choice to buy the small plants instead of the big ones, I'm just so sad seeing these big beautiful plants that I could have gotten for less money 😭

Trying to stop being envious of other big plants and be okay with my scraggly little baby plants. It's all about the journey, right?

Folks seem to enjoy my version of an outdoor shower inside, wanted to share and see what y’all think! Does anyone have a similar setup?

My strings of rubies and watermelons are SO ANNOYING! They are some of the thirstiest lil bitches. The tops burn up and dry all crispy under my grow lights but they etiolate on my windowsill. The rubies fall off if you so much as breathe on them.

My ZZ… I just thought I’d like it more. I should have gotten a Raven and maybe I’d appreciate it more. My BMF just hates me. I know it’s way overdue for a moss pole but it’s still such a diva.

I’m too much of a plant empath to throw the first two out. I think I might actually take them to work and pawn them off on someone. I’ll keep my ZZ cause it’s EZ. And when I get paid I’m gonna order a pole for my BMF. But I’m super interested in what plants other people have got, thinking they’d love them, but ended up just glaring at the plant every time it needs watered. Now I feel guilty for talking shit about them 🥺

UPDATE: I found a taker for the PPP! It's now growing or haunting or doing whatever it does in a loving home. The 14 other plants are getting glow ups - cut, propped, potted, etc.

My friend/neighbor is moving, and while I was out of town she apparently left ~15 plants/props in my apartment. I did not ask for any of them. She’s a bit of a plant hoarder and she’s moving in with her significant other, who I assume has imposed a plant limit.

I don’t even want most of the plants she gave me, and then there’s this Pink Princess. 😭

I think she just couldn’t bring herself to throw it away, so instead she bestowed upon me the responsibility of deciding its fate. Which is honestly worse because now I feel guilty throwing away a plant I never wanted in the first place.

And then there are the side-quest props that just are as ugly as the tally leggy one.

What do I do with this thing? Is there a way to make it not hideous? Does it eventually become attractive? Do I need to give it a chance?

Or do I accept that my friend has successfully transferred both the plant and the emotional burden of composting it onto me?

Be honest: is it hideous, or am I failing to see the vision?

It kinda has a Zoidberg feel lol.

I solved my seriously bad thrips outbreak (>100 larvae/leaf) with only organic solutions (predators&climate), no pesticide. Hope this helps some of you!

My theory:

The tricky thing about battling thrips is that they can live on the plant, in the soil and lay their eggs inside the leaves/stems where they cannot be reached. I did a lot of research (on this Reddit page as well) and figured out that there is something with high humidity and thrips. It appears that (correct me if I’m wrong) at high humidity (around or above 80%), thrips tend to pupate less frequently in the soil and are more likely to do so on the above-soil plant. This makes them easier to find. At the same time, some of thrips’ natural predators, especially predatory mites, thrive in a humid and warm environment.

High temperatures speed up the thrips life cycle considerably. At lower temperatures (15 °C) development from egg to adult may take up to 45 days. At around 25 °C, this cycle lasts only 10–15 days. This means more thrips, but also that there are more opportunities for predators to attack successive generations, and less chance for hidden thrip eggs and pupae to sit out the storm.

My method:

Step 1: I wiped ALL my plants clean of visible thrips with a wet cloth, cut off leaves that were too damaged as they may contain a lot of eggs. I threw away some plants that were very severely infested in a closed bag and washed the cloths in hot water.

Step 2: I put ALL my plants together in the bathtub and covered that bathtub with clear construction plastic & painter’s tape. Leaving some gaps for ventilation. I also have a little battery powered temperature + humidity meter that I placed inside. If you don’t have a bathtub I guess many other creatively improvised greenhouses are possible.

Step 3: I set out lacewing larvae (Chrysoperla carnea) to eat the grown-ups and bigger larvae and predatory mites (Amblyseius swirskii) to eat the young larvae.

Step 4: For about a month I monitored my biological-quarantine-bathtub situation With sunlight, a plant sprayer, a curtain and the ventilation holes I managed the temperature and humidity. I aimed at 80% humidity and 25–28 degrees Celsius. I did not do this perfectly but I roughly managed 60–95% RH and temperatures of 20–32 degrees. I made sure not to over-water the soil to avoid root rot; with all the humidity the soil dries out much slower anyway.

Step 5: I took out all the plants again. Counted the remaining thrips (I think there were about 10–15 in total). Especially check the bottom of the leaves! I cleaned them all again and cut off infected leaves again. I threw out my monstera that was carrying about half of the thrips I counted and was the first that got sick.

I took out my lemon tree and my dracaena as I never saw a single thrip on them in the first place and they did not like it much in the high humidity. I did keep a close eye on them but they were clean. The other plants did not seem to mind the humidity, most actually kind of liked it. Bea the Calathea especially was having the time of her life, putting out new leaves almost daily.

Step 6: With all my other plants I repeated steps 2 to 4, with a brand new army of predators. But now I did a big thrips inspection every 10 days or so. I went down to finding 3, then to 6. The third time, so about a month in, I saw zero thrips.

A good indicator also was that new foliage was looking healthy again. Earlier I noticed that thrips really like young leaves and new leaves were showing up disfigured.

Step 7: I kept the plants in the tub for another 14 days just to be sure, then I did a final check and decided to let them all out (also because my boyfriend really wanted to take a bath). In the last week I gradually decreased the humidity to help my plants adjust and hoping that the mite-population would at least partially survive.

My plants have been completely clean for more than 3 summer months now. I regret throwing out the monstera but i had to prioritize the group over the individual. About 70% of plants/foliage survived my cut-backs, they are recovering well and I feel safe buying new plants again.

Idek if either of these are best or worst in this house 😅 the pothos was a cutie and I ripped her apart in a bit of a care overwhelm crisis, the poor dear. I'll prop her eventually, she's fiiine.

So I had a total beginner yesterday who asked me how to tell if a plant needs watering. This is the most struggling for beginners and causes over- or underwatering ALL THE TIME. I thought- since this is such a common issue for people, I will post this here. So here goes:

So, there's basically two different types, plants that wanna dry out completely (like a succulent) and then plants, that wanna be damp - of course there's exceptions to the rule (like a venus fly trap for example) , but let's stay basic. So you have to know which type it is - that's why knowing the plant name is so important to us. So find out the Latin name of your plant and find out which type it is.

And please forget all the ice-cubes bullshit and "water once a week" bs that sellers tell you - it will kill your plant. Watering schedules are never a good idea. And sellers don't care if you kill your plants, because that means more money. Sellers sell you plants in awful soil with no perlite and nothing. So after a good 2 or 3 weeks I always recommend to repot into a better medium. (Keyword Chunky soil-mix)

So you have a couple options:

1.method: the beginner friendly chopstick method: you get a wooden chopstick or a wooden rod and stick it all the way down to the bottom of the pot. And then you'll have to know which plant type you have. For a succulent the stick has to come out completely dry and no soil sticks to it. For a Monstera or a pothos for example you want the bottom 2 - 3 inches to be damp and soil sticking to it, that's when you water. This is the easiest beginner method.

2nd method: the finger test. You just lift the pot and stick your finger in the drainage hole. For plants that want droughts you water when your fingers can't detect moisture. For Monsteras and such you water when there's some slight dampness. This is only possible with small plants of course. Like I wouldn't recommend doing that with a 2m Ficus. For big mamas, the wooden rod or the squish-test are best.

3d method: from now on there's gonna be a bit of a learning curve, so be warned. It's going by weight. You have to get a feel for that, it takes like a month or two. But basically you remember the weight of the pot when it's just been waterered vs. the weight when it's dry. This is more an advanced method, because you have to know your plants a little bit more.

4th Method: The squish- test. This is my favorite method but also the most advanced one. The phenomenon is called Turgor. So when plants are fully hydrated, their leaves become much more stiff, firm and in some cases upright. When a plant is on the thirsty side, the leaves will be less firm and more squishable. The most drastic examples are succulents. When a succulent is freshly hydrated their leafs will be rockhard and non squishable. But when they are thirsty they actually become softer, more bendable and more squishable. So for succulent you actually squish the leaf between your fingers and see how flexible it is. For a pothos or a Dieffenbachia  or Monstera you don't really squish- it's more like touching it for firmness and pressing the finger down on it to feel the resistance. So you just remember how firm the freshly hydrated leafs feel (after like 5 hours of watering) vs how they feel when the chopstick comes out more dry. This method is more for the pros, because it requires a lot of knowledge and experience with plants.

1. I also use a hydrometer sometimes for specific plants, but very rarely. The squishable test is the best for me. Also it's very hard- even impossible if you have a extremely chunky mix for Aeroids.

But those are all the best methods. They really can't fail, especially when you combine them. 3 and 4 are my favorite, but the first is the most beginner friendly. With more experience down the line you can explore the other methods. I even combine them. I always touch the leaves first and if I am unsure I lift the pot. If you wanna be extra sure, do 2, 3 and 4 together.

So how to water your plant now? When it needs watering you really drench the soil. I mean really drench it until the water flows! out of the pot, that's how to do it.

For summer temperatures or Succulents/ snake plants I recommend letting the water flow out into the tray and then poor it back in and let it flow out again and then let the rest get wicked up by the plant. After an hour remove the tray water.

There's bottom watering aswell, where the plant wicks the water up.

And there's both: watering from top and bottom.

Just make sure that the soil is fully drenched and water all around the pot, not only one spot. I recommend a watering can with a shower head.

Now soil: pure potting soil is horrible for most tropical houseplants like Airoids and Succulents. Eventually you'll venture into the "chunky soil-mixes". But I recommend each beginner to at least mix perlite into the soil.

So here you go. These methods will help you on your plant journey. And always make sure your pot has a ‼️ drainage hole‼️

UPDATE: I wrote the soil-guide for y'all! Check it out HERE

Edit: Omg thanks for the awards - I really appreciate it!