An amaryllis is one of the easiest ways to get a big, dramatic flower indoors in the dead of winter, and one of the most confusing to keep going afterward. The bulb arrives, a thick stalk shoots up, and a few weeks later the blooms are open. Then the flowers fade and many people assume … Read more
How to keep a florist cyclamen blooming: cool air, bright light, bottom watering, and how to rest the tuber over summer.
Most poinsettias end up in the compost bin in January, but they don’t have to. A red one from the office party can be kept going on a kitchen windowsill, and by midsummer it will have turned into a leggy green shrub. Getting the red back takes one specific thing: long, completely dark nights starting … Read more
Try to repot an asparagus fern that has lived in the same pot for years and there’s a good chance it won’t come out. Break or cut the pot away and there is often almost no soil left at all, just a solid mass of pale, fat, finger-sized tubers wound around each other. That root … Read more
A ti plant can start life as a piece of bare stick about the length of a hand. “Ti logs” — cane sections sold at some garden centers and gift shops — can be laid on their side in a tray of damp mix, and with a little patience two tiny red shoots poke out … Read more
A bromeliad can keep itself going across generations without ever being bought again. A pup from a pup from a guzmania that someone passed on is the third generation of the same plant: the original blooms, fades, and throws off babies, and one of those blooms a couple of years later and does the same … Read more
A staghorn fern on a board above the bathroom door is the kind of plant guests ask about every single time. It looks like a set of green antlers growing out of the wall. It can also be watered in the shower, which is either the laziest or the smartest plant routine there is. Staghorns … Read more
Almost every areca palm in a store looks a little tired, with a few brown tips and a yellow frond or two at the bottom. There is a reason for that. They are not hard plants, exactly, but they are hungry ones, and almost every store palm has been living on whatever was in its … Read more
A yucca grows faster than most people expect, and it is easy to be pleased with it right up until the top leaves start bending sideways against the ceiling. At that point the decision is whether to saw the plant in half. Sawing is the right answer: the stump sprouts new heads just below the … Read more
A parlor palm is one of the easier choices for an office, because the tag says it can handle low light, and it is right: a filing cabinet about ten feet from a north window is a perfectly workable spot. Where it runs into trouble is the opposite move — putting it somewhere that seems … Read more