My only current houseplant is older than I am. I’m not sure exactly how old - I’d have to call my mother - but it’s over thirty, anyway.
Two weeks. I kill everything. I don’t mean to, you understand. It just happens.
I’m really very talented in other ways. I’m a decent writer, a good friend, an excellent cook, and I can sew a little. I just can’t be trusted around living plants.
My husband has a plant ( one of those tall somewhat spindly frou frou palms) from his college days in the late 70’s, I’ve kept it alive these past 15 years. My Christmas cactus (is anyones elses sporting huge buds now?) is from a cutting my MOm got from old Gus the “bagboy” in N Miami circa 1975. It gets too big to handle, partially dies, I save a piece and we start over again.
I have a little cactus I bought at walmart about 10 years ago. I swear I can’t kill it, no matter what. I know I’ve went for a whole year without giving it water and it is still there. I’ve been nicer to it in recent years given its longevity, even giving it new dirt.
Currently? I don’t, nothing really, since the fire. But when I was a kid, a palm plant we got from church one Easter when we were pretending to be religious. We planted it and from one fround it grew into a huge plant that lived for decades.
Then there was the tiny little catus we bought the shot up to three phallic (frightenly so what with the thorns) feet. That was when I was oh, 8, and I do belive it was still there up till the aformentioned fire. (Almost thirty years)
About a week. So far, the cats haven’t eaten them.
Actually, I think I still have my amaryllis kicking around somewhere, in hibernation. About time to bring it back out, I suppose. It would be going on two years old this Thanksgiving.
I had to give it up in '05 when we moved across country, but I had a dracena that dated back to 1979. It was the first Christmas present that my now-husband ever gave me. It began small but was a good six feet tall. It went to a good home.
My mother has a Maiden Hair fern that she got when I was about four- six years old, (I’m 40 VERY soon). She has had her moments, she has been clipped to her absolute limit but she always came back with avengence.
For many years she was about 3 feet across, this year she looks a like an old, old lady and seems much, much smaller. Even though she is smaller these days she keeps on growing. It is no wonder that ferns were around in the dinosaur days, they are hardy beasts!
I’m always impressed that “Miss Maiden” (our family name for ‘her’) has been around so long. She really is a fixture at my mum’s house and a family favourite, we really would miss her if she gave up the ghost.
I had a plant grown from a “wandering jew” that was way older than me, I’m 31. My mom said they are bad luck and dh who generally doesn’t buy in to anything like that made me get rid of it. So now my oldest plant is 15 years. Its some type of hanging caladium I think. Its beautiful!
40 something for our couch potato.
Well, I had a little cactus-y plant that I got when I was 9 from my mum and it stuck around until the house fire when I was 14, so 5. Now I don’t have any houseplants but I’ll take care of my gran’s walnut tree when I move in with her next year.
When we first moved to California from Berlin in 1987, we bought a small palm (a spider palm?) tree about six inches tall. It has moved with us to each apartment in LA and then to Las Vegas…it is easily 10 feet tall now, and is by the entryway.
We also bought a small hanging plant about a year later, and we have made clippings from it and have about 10 more of those plants around the house, and the original plant is still thriving.
Oh, and should you ever move to the Southwest, NEVER plant a yucca in the backyard…those things are the spawn from hell and they seem to keep growing even if you dig up a five foot radius after you have yanked it out. They just keep coming back no matter what we do.