I love the fact that a thread on houseplants has google ads for domestic violence survivor services.
I have a big philodendron that was my Grandmother’s. My mother remembers it from her early childhood in the 1940’s, so it’s at least 60 years old.
Mine is 86. In 1920, my great-grandad and my grandpa went on a plant collecting trip to Cuba. (They were in the nursery business) One thing they brought back was the seed of a dwarf cycad. Grandpa planted the seed and kept the plant potted until his death in 1976. Then I took it home with me and have had it ever since.
I have a grapefruit tree, started from a seed when I was living in my first apartment after getting married. I don’t remember exactly which year I started it, but it must be at least 10 years now, possibly 12-13 years old. It’s 18" tall and has about 20 leaves. It has never flowered, and it’s ugly as sin. But it can’t move outside (not enough sun here in the PNW) and there’s the whole silly sentimental value thing.
Wow! John, that’s impressive! Those cycads are in it for the long haul. I’ve got a plectranthus/Swedish Ivy that’s about 25, and a pothos that was given up for dead by my stepmom, revived, and in my care for 14 years.
Two more I like, from NOLA: a discarded tradescantia (wandering jew) found curbside, left it in a bag for a month, then potted it up, now 14, going strong. Another is “Live Forever”, obtained from this great old guy in the Ninth Ward, who grew them in tire planters in front of his house, and loved to send everyone off with a baby plant. That neighborhood is now gone from Katrina, and he was old in '92, so that plant has special meaning.
Well, since you went and got all scientific, my 86 year-old cycad is a Zamia pygmaea. I’ve got about 20 other cycads in pots, of various genera, salvaged from the old family collection in south Florida. Many of these are at least 50 years old. I expect them all to live longer than I do. How much longer is another question, as I don’t think anybody else cares enough about them to keep then alive.
Deb has a jade that has flowered and she had it several years before we married 23 years ago. It is currently in a 14" pot with an external support to keep it from falling over. It suffered some sort of rot, a couple of years ago, that resulted in us cutting away a large section of the trunk and it has been infested with mealy bugs on several occasions, but it keeps making a recovery. (In the Summer, we put it on the deck beneath an awning where it gets all the fresh air and filtered sunshine it desires; it gets really full and healthy, then we bring it in at the first sign of frost to see whether we can kill it before the next Spring.)
Well… I have one that’s round and piney-looking and made of plastic, so if you carbon date it you’d get quite a big number…
What? Oh, doesn’t count? Live plants only?
Then I have to go to Mom’s. Not sure what her oldest plant is, but there’s a big colio that’s sat in the same corner for at least 26 years. And that pansy who got nicknamed Nava on the year that its flower lasted over 3 months, I think it’s still there… The cintas have been there since my childhood, I can’t promise that the original one is but they keep having daughters, which Mom gives away or plants in another pot. About 5 years ago she got a piece of siempreviva from my aunt and now her daughters are all over the place, she gave me two to bring to the family’s pantheon (the name means ever-living) and it’s funny because they are all clones but have different colors.
I’ve got a pot of Ledebouria socialis that I’ve had for about twenty years. It keeps dividing and I keep giving bits away.
The only plants I can keep are those which thrive on neglect and incompetence. I am the type of person who would forget to feed the children and pets if they couldn’t squawk at me. A poor little voiceless plant has no chance.
When we lived in San Diego, I had several plants that made it to 7 or 9 years old, and one (I inherited from a friend) that was over 20 years old. They did okay because my sister-in-law (who has a green thumb) came over every couple of weeks and prune them and water them and feed them. When we left California, I gave all my plants to her, and they are all still thriving under her compassionate care.
When we got here (Virginia) 6 years ago, flushed with undeserved success, I bought 6 houseplants for my new house. Of course, without my sister-in-law showing up periodically, 5 out of the 6 died in agony. The sixth must have an extremely hardy constitution, since it’s still hanging on at 6 years old. I have 2 other live plants, ones that I bought throughout the years to replace the first five Virginian houseplants I killed. They’d be somewhere between 4 and 6 years old, since I brought them over when we bought our current house.
All of my other houseplants are silk.
Cool. Do you have a guess as to how many times its flowered in all those years? They’re really awesome plants and as succulents, can go without water for a long time.
I only have 1 houseplant, but 20 or so officeplants. I have the same horticultural approach as Jess. Only the strong survive.
My officeplants are a mixture of plants I got from people who left our office over the years, or ones we had had at home but my wife wanted to get rid of. I know a small sansiveria is over 20 years old because we got it from a guy whose apartment we watched uin law school. With the exception of a 2 year old geranium (pelargonium) I doubt any of my plants are less than 10 years old.
I assume all you cycad fans have read Oliver Sacks’ Cycad Island? And if you are ever in Chi, you must check out the main room at the Garfield Park Conservatory which has several huge, ancient specimens.
One year and one month. ~sniff~ I’m so proud…
31, but most are 5-8.
We have a Chinese Evergreen. Actually we have a lot of Chinese Evergreen plants. See, when they get tall and leggy you can cut them off mid-stalk, and the upper part will eventually root if you put it in water, and the roots in the existing pot will send up more leaves so now you have two of them.
We’ve been married for 23 years. My husband got it from one of his grad-school roommates, who acquired it 2 years earlier when he rescued it from neglect by the members of his chemistry fraternity.
So, it (they?) is basically at least 25 years old - we have no idea how long the frat had owned it.
The next in line is a ficus that I bought about 15 years ago. It was perhaps 18 inches tall including the pot at the time. It’s now 6 feet tall and would be taller probably if I watered it more regularly. Oh, and did a better job of cutting off the side shoots so it could concentrate its growing energy on going up vs. out.
A swedish ivy that dates from some time in 1989. Okay, it’s not exactly the same plant; I take regular cuttings and make babies and compost the older ones when they get ucky.
I bought a cute little palm in a six-inch pot for my apartment balcony in 1993. I think it’s a Dracaena. It had about six fronds on it, and it was… cute.
Now it is much taller than I am, its trunk is bigger than the diameter of the orginal pot, and it’s outgrown containers that I swear are monstrously large. It’s also due for a larger pot, but I’m scared to upgrade its living arrangements! It started as a plant; it’s now a tree. I thought it was starting to die two years ago (it’s an outdoor plant, due to its size) but instead of one top, it now has four, and it’s started a second spurt at the base. It is one hardy palm. In the Langford area, we do get snow.
A spider plant that we had when we moved to Wyoming in 1977. It’s probably 35ish.
Wow - it took reading this thread title to make me realize that I do not have any houseplants. I have a couple of fake ficus and two more fake something-or-others, but nothing real. I now feel rather sad about thaat.
No I haven’t read it. Thanks for the tip!
I have a couple of ivies of indeterminate age, that came from some potted arrangement at some time. Other than that, the only plant I have that’s very old at all is a mother in law’s tongue. It came in a planter that we got from friends when our son was born, so we’ve had it twenty-five years as of last month. It was pretty sickly for a long time, seemed like every time it started to put up any new shoots something would fall on it or it would get knocked over or something and then it would have to start all over again. But it’s been doing pretty well for a couple of years now, with no mishaps (knock on wood) and it’s actually getting bigger. It has several leaves now, instead of just the two. I’m a little bit sentimental about it, so I’m really glad we didn’t manage to kill it.