It is apparently now time for one of my favorite rants, “People Who Tell You Cactus Are Easy Are Trying To Sell You A Cactus.” https://twitter.com/ursulav/status/1315011765189709824

Many “easy” plants are considered easy because they’ll grow outside in California. Or, like cactus, they take so long to be obviously dead that you blame yourself. Many of these plants require blazing sun and dry conditions, so they say it doesn’t matter if you forget to water.

And it doesn’t, because the plant is already dying from lack of sunlight. In fact, you probably can’t keep it dry enough to prevent it from rotting!

Unless your windowsill resembles the Sonoran, cactus are not an easy indoor plant.

The same goes for many succulents. Succulents are the new “easy” plant du jour. Me, I can kill most succulents so fast it doesn’t have time to make out its will.

Here’s the thing. Plants evolve in a set of conditions. In some plants, that’s a wide range! Dandelions can live everywhere! In some, though, that’s a very narrow range—a limestone cliff with high humidity, a peat bog, the underside of a rainforest tree.

Your house is also a very specific set of conditions. To grow a plant successfully, THESE TWO MUST OVERLAP.

Does the Venn diagram of “inside your house” overlap that of “Sonoran desert?” No? A lot of cactus are gonna be tough, then.

So what DOES grow in the house, you ask?

Well, the inside of most houses would be considered low light. We don’t notice because our eyes are incredible like that. A big window can change that, but often less than you think.

So you probably want plants that can live in shade. A lot of shade. Rainforest plants are often great for that, they evolve in the dark understory.

Some succulents can handle this—succulents refer to the type of plant that stores water in their leaves or stems—but some want FULL BLAZING SUN. Cactus are succulents (with a couple exceptions) but so is jade plant.

Allllso, humidity! Maybe it’s not a big deal where you are, but I live in a swamp. I can provide tons of sand and gravel and all the sunlight outdoors and most cactus will still drop dead because 90% humidity is not kind.

So what’s the humidity in your house? How does that overlap with your available sunlight? Find that overlap, figure out what evolved to live in that, and you will probably find your houseplant.

And stop thinking of yourself as having a black thumb because you were sold a plant that could never have thrived in the conditions in an average home. It’s not you.

Under standard apartment conditions, it is very hard to kill a pothos or a cast iron plant. https://twitter.com/ainleydelgado/status/1315015080174661638?s=21