A Boston fern that looks increasingly ragged no matter how often it gets watered is usually asking for humidity, not water. Move it somewhere that gets steamy showers every day — a bathroom with a bright window, say — and new fronds often follow within a few weeks. This is a plant that cares more … Read more
A Boston fern kept in a bright living room and watered on a reasonable schedule can still lose half its fronds to brown and drop within a month of coming home. The problem often isn’t light or water at all — it’s the tap water and the dry heated air, two things most people haven’t … Read more
A ponytail palm is one of the few plants that can be left alone for long stretches, which makes it a good fit for anyone who travels. The swollen base at the bottom of the trunk, which some people mistake for a problem or a weird graft, is actually the whole reason this plant is … Read more
Watering a ponytail palm on the same weekly schedule as everything else on the plant shelf can go on for almost a year before the base of the trunk goes soft in one spot. It’s a regular-houseplant routine applied to something that’s actually much closer to a succulent — that bulbous trunk is a water-storage … Read more
A polka dot plant can look fantastic for about four months, then go leggy, send up a few odd little flower spikes, and start looking tired no matter what you do. Treating it like a permanent houseplant makes that decline feel like a failure, but it’s just the plant’s natural timeline — many growers take … Read more
A polka dot plant bought for the vivid pink spots covering every leaf can fade to a dull, mostly green blur within a few months on a dim bookshelf. It’s easy to think the plant has somehow been damaged, but moving it to a brighter spot lets new leaves come in just as vivid as … Read more
A bird’s nest fern can’t really be propagated, divided, or grown from a cutting, and it takes a while to realize that’s just how this plant works. Almost everything else in this guide series can be started from a leaf or a piece of stem, but this fern only really multiplies on its own terms, … Read more
Cleaning dust and a bit of dropped debris out of the center of a bird’s nest fern with your fingers is an easy way to accidentally snap off a tightly curled new frond that hasn’t even unfurled yet. It seems minor at the time, just one frond, but that spot may never produce another one: … Read more
A kalanchoe on a bright kitchen windowsill can sit healthy and green for the better part of a year while stubbornly refusing to flower, while one kept on a hallway table that only gets a lamp in the evenings blooms twice in the same period. The well-lit spot is often exactly the problem: kalanchoe needs … Read more
A kalanchoe received as a gift, covered in bright orange blooms, can be kept going for months after the flowers drop without a single new one showing up — even with regular watering and a sunny windowsill. It’s easy to assume the plant has used up whatever made it bloom the first time. It hasn’t; … Read more