I have plants in my office at work. They made the commute there after the flooding problems I had at home, and I’ve left them there to fend for themselves.
I have had a spider plant for about nine years. It was bequeathed to me by a coworker because his was “oversexed” and kept making more of itself. Mine has a similar personality and little shooters are constantly growing as far away from the mothership as possible.
For the past three Christmases I have been dealing with poinsettias’ too. Two and a half years ago I won one at work, so I took it home where in flourished for about half a year. Then it died. I think it was because one summer evening I left the balcony door open and it got too cold for the Mexican plant.
Wimp.
One and a half years ago I wheedled another one. Not knowing much about them, and forgetting all previous experience, I walked it to the car, unprotected, in the middle of winter. That was enough for it, and it was dead in a week.
Half a year ago, I purchased one at Superstore that looked pretty sickly, having had numerous branches cut off. I have been taking good care of it. It gets sun and water and seems to be doing fine.
I have a love/hate relationship with my two surviving plants. I like seeing them grow, and they are a distraction from work. But they do things that really annoy me.
The spider plant, as previously mentioned, is constantly growing shooters. They depress me, because I see this plant working so hard to spread its seed. But that seed isn’t going anywhere. There is no viable soil in the vicinity, so all that is going to happen is that they will die off. Usually they start withering and the green growing parts at the end start making puppy dog eyes at me. I sometimes put that piece back into the pot where it might get water, but it is completely overcrowded there, so I just get to watch it die.
The Poinsettia was carved up before I bought it. It has been growing well and has created new growths to replace all the cut off branches. But they initially all happened on one side, so it has started getting lopsided. I turned it around and am trying to get it to grow on the other side. But the one branch that is growing there seems to have stalled. Instead, a branch on the other side has decided to get its sun by growing taller than all the others. This compounds the lopsided problem.
At least they aren’t smoking and doing drugs.