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Keeping your plants alive and healthy sounds complicated. And, actually, it is. If you’re anything like me, you’ve completely given up on trying to maintain a healthy houseplant. So instead, today I’m sharing four effective tips for how to kill your houseplant to give you one less thing in your life to deal with!
- Water it… or don’t
This one may not seem obvious at first. But the truth is, plants die easily from both overwatering and under watering. There really is no perfect amount of water to give it, so toss some in the pot occasionally and your plant will dry up or turn brown and decompose in no time!
- Enlist the help of friends and family
In my experience, the easiest way to kill your houseplants is to hire a babysitter. While moving to college one year, I asked my mom to look after my succulents for a while. Not even one day into her babysitting them, she dropped the pot and it shattered, sending bits of dirt and little succulent leaves all over the front porch. Now, I know that when I want to get rid of a plant, I just have to ask my mom to take care of it!
Not planning on going out of town and needing a plant-babysitter anytime soon? Schedule a vacation! Lord knows you’ll need it after you’re done killing all these plants.
- Help your plants make friends
Maybe you don’t have friends, but that doesn’t mean your plant shouldn’t! Buy your little snake plant a kitten friend or puppy BFF. Before you know it, your new pet will be a perfect playmate for your plant and just want to eat it up!
Indicators to know if your new pet and plants are bonding well:
● Dirt is scattered all over the house
● The plant has tiny teeth marks in all its leaves
● Your pet’s new favorite toy is the stem of the plant
Just make sure your plant isn’t the kind of friend that would secretly poison your pup or kitten. That’s just not nice.
- Give your plants a tan
Treat your plant like a redhead: not enough sun and it will quickly wilt after developing year-round SAD disorder; too much sun and it will shrivel up and die from unrecoverable sunburn. Sure, by sticking your pot on a sunny window ledge you’ll risk it growing bigger than your tiny apartment can handle. But chances are you’ll end up giving it too much (or not enough) sunlight and will soon see the damaging effects.
There you have it! There’s no secret sauce to killing your plants every time, but hopefully, these four tips can guide you down a murderous path that will leave you digging plant graves in no time. Happy plant killing!