Houseplants - does anyone manage to keep them alive???

Ahhh yes I'm the same. I got a beautiful orchid as a leaving gift from some teaching colleagues and to my utter amazement its still in full bloom, maybe minimal watering is best? Garden plants in planters are suffering a little as the planters dont have drainage (duhhhh).

I know this sounds soooo obvious but i always read the label on the plant, did your plants come with instructions at all??? Hubbys growing x x x x hot chillies which now look like beanstalks on the bedroom window sill and we have one lonesome lime growing on his lime tree....

the only plant ive ever been able to look after are spider plants.

remove the deadish flowers off your wilting one and give it some plant food - baby bio is fabby - and see what happens... but many summery plants are one offs and dont tend to last longer than a few months anyhoo.

goodluck!

? There were no instructions with it, no. Probably was just a summery one. It managed 2 and a bit weeks! oops. I've never bought baby bio, I'll investigate that next time we go to the garden centre. I'm fine with actual garden stuff, but houseplants are beyond me.

Glad it's not just me ? Where do you get your fake flowers from? I've never bought any. My mum has some awful ones that look really fake, and if I'm going to have any I'd like them to look as real as possible.

Tescos sell bottles of baby bio, you just mix it with water and pour it in.....

Even easier then! Thank you.

Glad I'm not the only one! I have a couple of hardy specimens that have survived years, but everything else dies within weeks of me being let near it. My neighbour asked me to water his tomato plants while he was away this weekend, I fear for them ?

I'm always killing my houseplants off ☹️. I'm half-tempted to buy some artificial plants just so I have some greenery in the house. The only plant that seems to withstand my level of 'care' is my aloe vera - I've bought that back from the brink so many times!!

If it is a strange plant you have to make sure the soil has the right PH value (some only grow in acidic soil, other alkaline etc) Also it is best, after repotting, to absolutly soak the plant then leave it for a week. Plants can be rather emotional things and get quite upset over being moved / repotted. I would say dont give up on it till the pot is growing moss. I have had plants I thought were dead and gone but popped up later. Also ... what season is it? You never know, it may have come to the end of its lifespan anyway. Quite a lot of plants only have a 7 day lasting time so ... And you have to work out where it is supposed to live (full sun / partial shade / shade) It can be quite annoying to have plants sometimes! Have you thought of an Aloe Vera to look after? It has the same longevity of a cactus, near damned impossible to kill, and while wierd looking has a wonderful green colour As they are semi-see-through they almost have a glow about them. That and if you burn or cut yourself you have a natural healer right on your windowsill.

I haven'tyet killed the two plants I was bought as end of term presents - mainly coz H is looking after them. I am also very proud of the chillie plants I bought at Whitsun half term and they are still going strong and have yielded two crops! I've tried it all in the past but they just don't make it.

Except for the two cacti that my ex H left when he moved out - they are still going strong despite being thrown out into the garden!

Mine die too! I don't think they like no water for a month and then a whole pint once a month. Except spider plants, I can grow them because they seem a bit more forgiving of my neglect!

Sorry, I'm no help - I can't even keep the coriander on the kitchen windowledge alive although the basil plant bought at the same time has sprouted two tentacles with flowers on that are making a spirited attempt to reach the ceiling - no tasty leaves though ?

The only thing I can't seem to kill is a peace lily. Everything else I leave to H otherwise they either dry out or drown

Shaz

I used to have this problem. My plants all died no matter what I did. I did everything right, I watered and fed them according to the care ticket, I talked to them, rotated them so they didn't lean towards the windows, but they all died. I then discovered that my husband (now ex-husband) had been tipping his coffee dregs into various plant pots, effectively poisoning nearly every one of them!

I have much better luck now. But I found if I named the plants I had more incentive to look after them properly. The best result I've had is with a dragon tree called Puff (as in magic dragon) who started out as a little 6 inch thing from Ikea 4 years ago, and is now in his 3rd pot and taller than me.

I swear by baby bio once a month and words of encouragement. Oh and a long winded apology if they get droopy.

ooh, weird, I had a dragon tree called Puff when I was at uni. It did last 6 years, then got attacked by the toddler and never recovered... So I did manage to keep one alive!

I will persevere. I have baby bio now, and will buying 2 new house plants next week when back from hols and see if we get on. I hope to get to Christmas...

Baby bio my mum uses this and I've got myself a pot of it...though I keep forgetting to use it!

So far I've managed to keep all 3 plants in my flat alive, yay!

I haven't really paid any attention to instructions, just water when they look droopy, feed them baby bio when they look a bit yellow and turn them when they start leaning one way too much!

You do need to take in to account how much direct sunlight they like, one of my plants kept looking like it was dead in direct sunlight, so I moved it in to the bathroom which gets the same amount of light but it's not direct due to the frosted glass and it's so much happier!