If you have struggled over the years to keep your houseplants alive, you are not alone, but you seriously think about adding these low-maintenance plants to your collection
Admitting defeat and chucking out your withered and dead houseplant is never easy. Especially if you are sure you did everything right and followed the care instructions for your indoor plants to the letter, only to find none of your attempts were successful and the plant died before your eyes.
A lot of people struggle to keep their houseplants alive despite their best efforts, but you shouldn’t be deterred from trying to achieve the indoor jungle you are looking for. House plants come with a wide range of benefits to your health and happiness – according to the Royal Horticultural Society, they can improve your mood and concentration, and reduce your stress. They even have the power to potentially bring down your blood pressure, so investing in houseplants is well worth it.
However, if trying to keep them alive has become the very thing that is stressing you out, then you need to try incorporating these “hard to kill” plants into your home – especially if you don’t get much natural light in your rooms. Content creator and houseplant enthusiast Jo Johnson posted these recommendations on her TikTok, which boasts 1.6 million followers, and the video quickly wracked up thousands of likes.
She recommends these plants to anyone “who kills everything” they try to grow, particularly if low light is a factor in why some of your previous plants have failed to thrive. First up she advises you to invest in a snake plant – also known as Mother-in-law’s tongue. There are a range of varieties you can select for your home, and according to the RHS they are “deservedly popular for their resilience” and long life spans, who also note that this plant is “tolerant of poor light and forgiving of a little neglect.” You only need to water these sparingly in the cold months, and a little more when things warm up.
Jo explains she only waters her thriving snake plant “once a month” and claims that it “can actually live off artificial light and he’s pretty hard to kill, just don’t overwater him,” she advises. The second plant Jo recommends for those with a less than stellar record of keeping houseplants alive is a ZZ plant, which she says is “also very hard to kill,” and she admits she only waters hers “once every three months”. Jo isn’t the only person recommending you opt for a ZZ plant – whose botanical name is Zamioculcas zamiifolia – with House and Garden calling it one of the “most indestructible indoor plants”.
Finally, Jo advises you to consider a Chinese Evergreen plant in your home, which she says “thrives” in low light and only needs watering monthly. According to Garden Design, this one is seriously “easy to grow, even for beginners” and has powerful air purifying properties as “one of the best foliage plants for cleansing room air of toxins such as benzene and formaldehyde.”
Do you have a story to tell? Email: emma.mackenzie@reachplc.com
