One of the great things about hard to kill houseplants is that they also tend to have lots of babies. The combination of lots of these plants (cause none of them die) and plenty of babies mean that finding hard to kill houseplants is an easy task. Here are some tips that will help you find some of the hard to kill plants.
Know which plants are hard to kill—if you are trying to find plants that are hard to kill it is a good idea if you know what you are looking for. Chances are pretty good that you will be familiar with at least some of these plants because their hearty nature makes them extremely popular. Some of the hardest to kill plants are spider plants, devil’s ivy, and snake plants. All of these plants can grow with very little light, sporadic watering schedules, and they virtually never need to be repotted. Other plants that are easy to grow include the aloe plants, rubber plants or rubber trees, dragon trees, and Christmas cacti. With minimal effort, you should be able to keep any of these plants alive.
Go to the supermarket—you don’t necessarily have to go to a nursery or a greenhouse to find hard to kill plants. The hard to kill varieties thrive in places like K-Mart or your local supermarket. Virtually any place that sells any plants at all will sell the hard to kill variety. If you are looking at the plant selection in your local supermarket, and you don’t recognize the names of any plants that are mentioned above, you might try looking at the tags. Usually there is a little plastic tag stuck into the soil of every plant. On this tag, you will find the name of the plant, how much water the plant likes, and how much sun it needs. If you are looking to find a hard to kill plant, you will look for one that doesn’t need much light or water. You might also ask the person that is in charge of the plants which ones are easy to grow.
Get a starter—if you have a friend that has an easy to grow plant, the chances are pretty good that it is also easy to propagate. Probably the easiest plant to propagate is the spider plant. If you have ever seen a spider plant, there was probably a vine or two coming out of the plant and on the vine were what looked like little plants. If you want to start a spider plant, just cut off one of those baby plants with a little of the vine attached. Float the plant in a cup of water and watch the roots. In a few days, little roots will start to grow on the portion of vine that is attached to the plant. When the roots are about a half of an inch to an inch long, you can plant the little plant in soil. You will be surprised how quickly these little plants grow.
Plants that grow on vines are also notoriously easy to propagate. If you take a piece of the devil’s ivy and place it in water, the same thing will happen as happened with the spider plant. That is, roots will start to develop and then you can plant it in soil. Some of the other easy to grow plants have little plants that will grow up beside them. If you know someone that has an aloe plant or a Christmas cactus, you can ask him or her to watch for babies. The baby plants will start growing right next to the adult plant. You can harvest them right from the soil, trying to take as many of the roots as possible, and repotting them.