Houseplants That Are Impossible To Kill

hi everyone my name is nick and today we're going to talk about plants that are impossible to kill disclaimer right off the bat these plants are 100 possible to kill if you over water them or if you do not give them the right lighting requirements all of these plants fall into the underwatering side of the spectrum so they're for neglectful plant parents people who travel anything along those lines if you do not pay that much attention to watering your plants these plants are for you and they're impossible to kill i swear so some of them fall in the bright light end of the spectrum some of them fall on the low light end of the spectrum so let's start off talking about the ones that prefer bright light and the first one i want to talk about today is epiphyllum so i think these are commonly well this variety is commonly referred to as an orchid cactus and this one in particular is an epiphyllum acrimania and these are really impossible to kill as all these plants are but you see these all over the place at um like i mean any like mom and pop store here in philadelphia i see not not everyone but many of them i do see an epiphylum usually growing in their window among other plants but usually i just see a nice chunky epiphylum growing and there's good reason why these people have these plants and it's because they're impossible to kill so they could be watered a little bit every day i'm sure don't do that because they could rot but um really i water mine like every 10 days plus and i've never had an issue in fact there's another similar one to this that i have hanging up in my home in a much larger pot for sure but i can't even tell you the last time i watered that plant like straight up probably in 2019 definitely have not ordered it this year i should now that i'm talking about it but that thing looks fine and it'll it will be fine when i water it too it'll probably be even better than it is now but yeah they're they're really impossible to kill plants can really withstand neglect they do have little sm a little smash little spines on the leaves or whatever you want to call these i forget the exact name um that these flattened um straps of leaf would be referred to as but um they bloom they do have really nice large blooms some of them at least some of the other types of epiphyllums that are out there are more so grown for their foliage so there is another one that i wanted to spotlight today that is more grown for its foliage the the interesting shape of its foliage and that is this um epiphyllum oh i don't even remember the name of this one but they call it a rickrack cactus and it's got these funky little zigzag leaves or sometimes they call it zigzag cactus it depends maybe there's different varieties um but both of these actually this and the epiphylum acromania were gifted me as just cuttings so this was just one little piece when um someone gave me a cutting of this and it's since grown off all these little other pieces in just the last couple of months so they are rather fast growers but this one was gifted to me from one of my youtube subscribers about two years ago at this point and i believe she gave me three or four pieces and i just shoved them in this pot and i stuck it up in the window and i'm not even kidding when i say this is the first time i've pulled this pot out of the window if you can't tell by like the small amounts of cobwebs and just like pieces of like vines that have just like or like tendrils that i've grabbed on from plants past but this thing has just exploded into a nice a nice mother plant at this point so i'm i'm very happy i should really give it a nice dusting while i have it off of the hook but yeah it's really nice to actually see how large this plant has gotten if i didn't film this video today i don't think i would have really ever pulled it down anyway the care let's talk about the care so these do require bright light they require really bright light i grow both of these in south facing windows actually i think that one the acrylic is in the west facing window but i only have west and south facing windows in my home so my plants do receive rather bright light if they are hanging out inside of a window as both of these are and i think that's the secret to these they really do like to be practically fried in a window so um put your epiphylums as close to window as possible maybe not necessarily have to have them in the window but very close to the window would be best and do not over water them this one i'm very forgetful with i probably water it like every two or three weeks while the other epiphylum is more at my eye level so i get to water it a little bit more often um but this one as you can kind of see from these leaves back here they're a little shriveled up and i can tell that this one could really use a nice watering once i'm done filming this video so let me just carefully put this guy down another reason i wanted to talk about these ones first is because i was a little nervous about juggling this rickrack cactus but i want to talk about another jungle cacti for um my second pick for today and that's rip salus so this one right here i believe is a rip salas becifura i think it's some cultivar a variety of that species um i really wanted to pull down my rip salas pylocarpa for this video today but my cenizia macro glasses for my wax ivy has completely entangled itself in the macrame hanger that it's growing on so we're stuck with this rip salas becifura today but that's not really a downgrade because this plant's just absolutely uh fantastic with its just green spaghetti look but very similar to the other jungle cactus of the epiphylums i shared with you guys these guys are very very low maintenance i would consider them impossible to kill as long as you not over water them the added bonus about um these rip salads i would say is that they require a little bit less light than the epiphylums do so you can tell that this is less um thick foliage as the epiphyllums have more strappier leaves so they probably required more light to hold up that thick juicy foliage these little thin leaves that my rib salads have and most of my rip salas are are quite thin they do not require as much light they can really withstand small amounts of water of course if i'm very forgetful with this one if you look very close inside the pot you will see some brown dried up bits and pieces from me being a little too forgetful but when my rip salads are in need of water they just kind of shrivel up a little bit very similar to the epiphyllum the rickrack cactus that i just shared with you guys but they do have very nice telltale signs of course if you give these a little bit more light i'm sure they might grow a little bit faster but i just have mine pulled off maybe two feet from my bright windows in my home and they seem to do fantastic and some of my other reptiles i even have pulled off even further of course they do grow much slower but i've never had an issue with them i just make sure to really not water them until the soil is bone dry but really really easy plants i don't think i've really killed a rip salas yet so i would say that they are really impossible to kill another one that requires bright light is uh calen coe this one i think is a perfect uh option for this video because i believe kalanchoes are really just like weeds in their natural habitats because they are they're impossible to kill so this is i wanted to talk about this one today but i think this is kind of a bad example uh but this is a panda plant or a kalanchoe tomentosa and this is my favorite kalanchoe which is why i wanted to talk about it because it's just super fuzzy and blue and like just a very very striking plant and i can get a little close i'm sure you're gonna see some dust and some cat hair on this plant but you can see where they have these little like paw or fingers it kind of looks like these little brown spots and on other kalanchoes that i have in my home or that grow in general they produce these little baby plants that um are just offsets of the plant and that's how they propagate itself and they will just fall into the soil and they will regrow itself so another type of calallen kobe is commonly called mother of thousands for that reason and i should have grabbed an example for this video but unfortunately i didn't of course i have the magic of extra footage that i can put in to show you guys but i actually just found a mother of thousands growing in my aloe plant that i've had for many years and that the calanco is taller than the aloe plant i don't even know how that happened i didn't even know it was there so i'm gonna have to go in there and yank it out soon and because of the way it grows i'm sure if i look in the general vicinity of the pots around that count or that aloe i'm go and the calallen kelly at this point because it's taken over its space but um i will find baby plants growing in the other pot so if i'm correct i will include some footage of that but this one is also very easy impossible to kill of course we had a little accident earlier this year with a pot falling on it so that's why it's looking a little bit bald compared to when you last may have seen it but i've just taken all of those leaves and just place them back into the soil because they just root up very easily if you just literally lay them on top of the soil you don't have to put them in the soil or anything and they will just root up these little baby plants and you just let them go they will just root themselves into the soil and go in fact i believe i just found this literally just growing on my windowsill like it was just sitting next to the pot on the windowsill and it's completely rooted up and it's just starting to grow a baby plant so i'm just gonna nestle it back into the soil and it can grow a wonderful new plant calanco we do require a bright amount of light if you do not give this plant bright light i would not be surprised if it rots or if the leaves come in just a little less big and beautiful and juicy but really impossible to kill specifically if you have a bright window this plant um make sure you pick one that you like because it's not going to be going anywhere anytime soon so really truly tough as nails and one more i want to talk about today that does require some bright light is sansevieria and i wanted to be a little specific today and talk about um sansevieria cylindrica so the the circular types of sansevieria i just find that the the strappier leaf sans of areas the trifociatas they can be um not as forgiving when it comes to underwatering or over watering these ones seem to be a little bit better and on top of that the trifociatas they can suffer from this disease or they get this brown spot on the leaf and while i'm sure it exists in sansa various cylindrica i have not had the issue with them in my experience so do not quote me on that that is probably not correct but i have personally never had the issue of that disease with my stanza various cylindrical cylindricals just my trifosciatas if that means anything to any of you but this one in particular they call the starfish san severian it's a sansevieria cylindrica bancol and it is really a plant that is impossible to kill i've had this one for probably two and a half years now because i think or not oh my gosh i have no idea how long i've had this plan um i got it right when i started working at urban jungle so two years two years okay we sorted it out but um this one was just this one plant and it's put off these little baby offsets so similar to like how an aloe plant would grow it just makes these little babies and i could separate them if i wanted to to give them to friends now this plant could definitely um withstand lower light i would just find that these thick fingers if you will would come in a little less thick they might be the size of my pinky instead of my thumb and i want to give this plant bright light so it can grow to its fullest potential so definitely could withstand lower light but i wouldn't necessarily recommend it i think that's what the san severa trifociatas are a little bit better served for but this one's great for a bright windowsill i don't have to think about watering it that often i probably water it like every 10 to 14 days if i go a little too far without watering it the leaves will kind of shrivel up a little bit they do have these creases and they will kind of like shrivel in on themselves but that's something that's easily fixed with just some adamant watering not over watering but just regular waterings um the plant will easily plump itself back up so all of these fun little um sansevierias that have these like thicker leaves so like the sansa various cylindrica the sansevieria bonkel the sansevieria fernwood i find all of these to be really excellent options for your bright windowsills and you really don't have to think i'm that i think about them that often at all so moving over into the lower light end of the spectrum for this video i want to talk about one that i think everyone's probably expecting to be on this list if you're familiar with houseplants so i might as well get out of the way sorry for taking so long to even talk about it but this is a zz plant or a xamiya culcus xamiafolia and this is like the plant that is just like known for being impossible to kill once again it's totally possible to kill this plant if you overwater it but what i always say about this plant when i'm selling them at the plant shop where i work is if you water this plant more than you pay your rent it's too much now you could totally water this plant like every two or three weeks i'm sure it would be okay you could give this plant a very very very well draining mixture and you could probably water like every couple of days to once a week but in our homes what we typically are doing is just using a plain potting soil and if you're being a good plant parent you add a little bit of perlite or some orchid bark in there and you really try to amend it but that's still going to be pretty heavy for the zz plant which has very very thick roots and it also has these little potato-like structures that are inside the soil and that's where they store all their water so that's why you don't want to over water them because as well as having these very uh thick stems fronds i don't know the word but they have these very thick bulbous uh root systems below below the soil that will rot very very easily upon over watering so you do really want to be mindful with this plant but this is the one plant that i would say um if anyone comes to me in the plant store where i work and they're like i have a basement that i want to put a plant in or i have a bathroom with no windows or i have an office at work that has no windows this is the one where i wholeheartedly can recommend that they can grow this plant and it will actually grow it might not grow to be the most incredible beast of a plant it might be a little wimpy over time but it's still gonna grow and you're not gonna kill it as long as you don't water it more than you pay your rent so you could put this plant in a closet you could literally put this plant in the closet and just forget about it and i'm sure you could come back a month or two later and it would probably look exactly the same and that's the magic of this easy plant and that's why everybody should have as easy plant i put these in the darkest corners of my home i have one on a high shelf this is where this one lives um i have one on top of my refrigerator i have one on top of a bookcase it's just like the plant that i throw in the darkest corners if i just need a little bit of greenery but i don't necessarily want to risk putting another plant there and one thing actually cool about this zz plant is it's got a variegated stem which is very cool um the whole um petiole i don't i don't know frond i don't know the word for this stem is variegated as well but i think it's kind of a fluke for lack of better term because all the other stems it has since grown off of the same tuber are not variegated so boohoo is sad but whatever but um moving on to another type of plant for low light um is aglinema or chinese evergreen but i want to say first before i get into it is that i don't swear by ugly nemas i think that some of them can be a little difficult to grow in the home i find i bring them home and some of the lower leaves turn yellow and they fall off or maybe two of the plants out of the five in the pot might just like rot away and it's a little disheartening and frustrating for a plant that's so highly uh spoken of but there is one type of aglionema that i grow my home i think it's a variant or a cultivar or a hybrid i'm not too sure on the exact of the specificity of it all but there's one i grow in my home that not only looks fake but i don't think a single leaf has ever yellowed on this plant i've had it for i would say about a year if not over a year at this point so i feel like i can wholeheartedly recommend it to you guys as a plant that's impossible to kill but it's this ugly nema i think it's spring snow and this thing looks fake does it not look fake oh my gosh it like the only thing that i can prove you that's real is from how the leaves are kind of curling below from my my neglect my underwatering but it really does look like i just like went to my local craft store and just like found a fake plant in their fake plant section and just put it in a pot it really does look like that i had this growing in my vertical garden for some time but i actually took down my vertical garden because i wanted to make room for some other art in my home but i just have since potted it up in this pot it's been living in this pot for a number of months now and has done nothing but grow like i feel like i'm so used to my ugly animals or my chinese evergreens having these lower leaves turn yellow and fall off very quickly if it's just like has a just a drop of unhappiness in it but this thing is great and once again i put this in one of the darkest corners of my home it's sitting on my bar cart on the furthest edge of the bar cart away from the grow light away from the window so it's got to be at least like 12 feet away from the closest window so really is not getting any light at all yet it still has the audacity to look completely fake and unreal so i have to recommend aglenema spring snow to you guys i probably water this plant maybe like every 10 to 14 days maybe even pushing beyond that i'm very very forgetful with it but this is a plant where i know i could forget about this plant for like weeks on end and it would be fine at this point i feel very very comfortable with this plant so highly recommend okay so i think i have one more to share with you guys today and this is of course a rather large one oh and it's rather dusty too but this is a dressena janet craig and i really want to be specific today talking about dracinogenic craig because this is a type of dracena that has a very fleshy stem as you can see from this green fleshy stem right here so there's a lot of more um common dracenas like the dracaena fragrance which is the corn plant or the drisana marginata which is the dragon tree and they have woody stems and are they difficult plants to grow no but i find that i have less success with them because i don't know what it has to do with those woody stems but maybe something to do with the root systems but they can just really hollow out and just fall apart if they're underwater too much or if they're overwatered they rot so easily but i've never had that issue with this dracinogenic craig it's very similarly or similar to um like the lucky bamboo which is a dracena not bamboo unfortunately if i just crushed a couple dreams out there but this drisana janet crag this is one that if anybody comes to me and they're looking for a large plant for their dark home or their dark business or whatever they have i always say dressing janet craig if you're worried about spending money on a large plant and you're worried about killing it get a dressana janet craig there is so much to love about this plant and i know it's i know it's not the most exciting plant out there but there's so much to like love about it i know i just have these two little canes in the pot typically you'll have like three to five canes in the pot this is actually when i wreck i rescued from work because the largest cane in the pot got some pretty bad frost damage it's what happens when you get plants trucked in in january sometimes so this might not be the most attractive drastic crack out there specifically because it's like literally covered in dust but this one lives behind my television in my bedroom so that's one why it's covered in dust and two why it's still in its plastic pot because i don't physically see the pot that it planted in it just gives me a little uh life behind my television so i can decide if i want to watch my plant or the tv if i'm in my bedroom and once again it's also why it's literally just riddled with dust right now i really have to give this plant a good uh cleaning and also a watering because i cannot tell you the last time i watered this plant i once again i would not be lying if i say i probably haven't watered this plant this year and i can tell from how this stem is getting kind of shriveled it could really use a good drink so i'm gonna throw this plant in my shower when i'm done filming this video and just give it a really good clean really good water and then i probably will not have to worry about it again until the late fall or early winter that's very neglectful of me i probably should be paying a little bit more attention to this plant but i'm just letting you guys know how truly tough as nails impossible to kill this dracinogenic crackers highly highly recommend this is the one as well as this easy plant i would say if you're looking for a large plant for your home and you do not want to kill it these are what you want so i would love to hear your um options as well for plants that are impossible to kill because i'm sure there are more out there these are just the ones i'm speaking from my own experience so just to recap it was um epiphyllum rip salas uh san severia calancoe zamia culkis aglianema and dracena specifically the fleshy dracenas so thank you guys so much for joining me today if you don't already follow me on instagram at philly foliage subscribe to my channel and i will see you guys in my next video have a great day

Channel: Nick Pileggi

Views: 121,845

Rating: 4.9476466 out of 5

Keywords: Plants, Plant, Houseplants, Houseplant, Impossible, Kill, House plant, House plants, Sansevieria, Dracaena, Rhipsalis, Epiphyllum, Jungle, Cactus, Cacti, Aglaonema, Zz plant, Kalanchoe, Nick pileggi

Id: pP2w04-4Rfw

Length: 20min 7sec (1207 seconds)

Published: Wed Jul 15 2020