Give an arrowhead plant a moss pole and it can transform from a small trailing plant with cute heart-shaped leaves into a much bigger, more dramatic climber with deeply lobed leaves, far larger than the originals. It’s genuinely one of the more shape-shifting houseplants out there, and that adaptability is part of what makes it … Read more
An arrowhead plant can end up looking nothing like itself after about a year: the cute little heart-shaped leaves it was bought for give way to long vining stems with deeply lobed leaves that barely resemble the original shape. It’s easy to assume something has gone wrong, but this is just what syngonium does as … Read more
A Chinese evergreen is a good pick for the darkest corner of an apartment, a spot where nearly everything else tends to give up and get leggy or die outright. It’s slow growing but consistently healthy there, which is exactly the reputation that makes it a go-to choice for low-light spots. Light Chinese evergreen tolerates … Read more
A Chinese evergreen is described by everyone as nearly impossible to kill — and then it gets left on a windowsill through a cold snap, and the leaves curl and droop within a couple of days. This plant’s reputation for toughness is mostly about tolerating low light and neglectful watering; it’s actually one of the … Read more
A dieffenbachia that has grown tall and leggy with a bare lower stem doesn’t have to be tossed. The whole cane can be cut into a few sections and each one rooted in water, with gloves on the whole time given the sap, and over a few months an awkward, top-heavy single plant becomes several … Read more
Yellowing from the bottom up soon after getting a dieffenbachia is common, and trimming off a damaged leaf without thinking twice about the sap is an easy mistake. Touching your lips afterward can leave your mouth tingling for the rest of the afternoon — a reminder of exactly why this plant earned the nickname dumb … Read more
Ming aralia doesn’t appreciate being moved, and the lesson is an easy one to learn the hard way. Left in the exact same spot for a long stretch, it turns out to be one of the lowest-maintenance houseplants, which surprises people given its reputation as a difficult, finicky species. Light Bright, indirect light suits ming … Read more
A ming aralia moved across town — same watering schedule, same pot, same general light situation in the new apartment — can drop nearly half its feathery leaves within days anyway. Nothing about the care changed, but the plant’s situation did: this is genuinely one of the most reactive houseplants to any kind of disruption, … Read more
Rhipsalis is often described as basically a cactus you can forget about. Forgotten in the desert-cactus sense, with sparse water and blasting sun, it shrivels and bleaches within a month. This trailing, spineless cactus grows wild on tree branches in rainforest canopies, and treated more like a fern than a succulent, it turns out to … Read more
Putting a rhipsalis on the sunniest windowsill and watering it on the same sparse schedule as other cacti, on the assumption that a cactus is a cactus, backfires within a few weeks: the thin trailing stems turn pale and papery in the strongest sun and shrivel from lack of water everywhere else. Rhipsalis is a … Read more