DATE:     12/23/99  
CONTACT:  Dr. David Bradshaw, (864) 656-4949      
WRITER:   Giles Singleton, (864) 656-3876 

Stubborn Plants: Surviving Neglect, Drought and Injury 

     CLEMSON -  Recently we had a request from someone who
travels a lot for plants that can survive anything, even neglect
for up to two weeks.  
     In my office, a plant has to be tough and hardy to make it
through my neglect. I've got some plants on my windowsill that I
crammed into pots and made into natural bonsai before I started
working on my doctorate degree back in '73. They are still in the
same pots, 26 years later. 
     These plants are cacti and succulents. The natural places
these plants grow often have a wet season and later very dry
xeric conditions. So they are attuned and able to withstand
extremes. 
     Two weeks is nothing, for a cactus or even a succulent to
survive. So I would suggest that people interested in stubborn
plants consider having a combination of cacti and succulents.
They will tolerate anything. 
     Another stubborn plant is a very simple heart-leaf
philodendron. I have one that grows all over my ceiling. It has
been in my office for 14 years in a two-gallon pot of soil, and
it is pot-bound. 
     Philodendrons do better when they are pot-bound than when
they are not. I started with five or six rooted cuttings, just
little pinches that were two or three leaves, stuck in water. 
     When they rooted, I put those in the pot, and now they are
just all up the walls and around my office. I get more comments
from people just passing my office about the green jungle growing
all on the ceiling and walls.  
     I water them once a week and, if I remember, I fertilize
them once a year, whether they need it or not. I'm convinced they
can survive on very little fertilizer. 
     The only time I've had a real difficulty was one year I put
too much fertilizer, and they all rotted off at ground level.  I
had to pinch them off and root them again in fresh soil.  
     The heartleaf philodendron will tolerate anything. We even
have Mylar over the windows, which cuts out all the natural
light. The only real effective and useful light we get is from
the florescent lights; these plants adjust to almost any light
intensity. 
     Still another hardy plant is Sansivera, which is also known
as mother-in-law 's tongue or the snake plant. This plant is
fairly hardy, but is quite sensitive to freezing damage. I have
them out on the front porch, or out on the patio, and if one of
those early frosts comes along, the next day they will be lying
on the ground wilted down, yellow, and mushy. They will not 
tolerate freezing damage, but otherwise they will tolerate water. 
     I have seen them grow bare root in a bottle of water hanging
over a kitchen sink, for as much as 17 years. They don't grow
much this way, but they are still surviving. If you took them
out, root pruned them and planted them in a pot, they would go to
growing over night. 
     Succulent plants are also good for survival. The jade plant
is a succulent, and as such is rather brittle. It can be tough
and can exist in a quite small container. A large jade plant can
exist in a quite small container of soil and even flourish in a
pot-bound condition. 
     The reason I bring that up again is that so many people
allow their houseplants to become pot-bound, and then wonder why
they shed their leaves and decline. But there are some plants
that not only tolerate being pot-bound but excel at it. 
     On one huge jade plant that was given to me by a friend in
Raleigh, N.C, I could count 37 years of growth. In winter, it
would have poor indoor light intensity and grow long and skinny
stems. She would then put it outside in summer, and it would grow
thick, succulent leaves. The result was a graceful cascading
habit of growth.
     Then my son was learning to walk and pulled the edge of it,
tipped the pot upside down and smashed it into 200 plants. 
     Jade plants propagate quite easily too. With the jade plant 
that was broken to 200 pieces, many of those little stems already
had the root primord forming on the lower part of the elbow of a
curved limb; I just stuck these back in soil. If a single leaf
sheds from a change in the light, you could stick it in the soil
to form a new plant. 
     Most of these really tough, hardy survival plants are easy
to propagate. For philodendrons, you just need one joint with a
leaf attached to it, and it will root in water. Then stick it
right in the soil. Or you can pinch off a stem cutting and stick
that down in the moist soil to root. 
     The cacti grow little side pods and offshoots, which just
need to be separated from the mother plant and dropped on top of
the soil. They will usually root right in place. 
     The snake plant has underground stems that grow in the pot.
Just separate them, and put them in a new pot. If you have a
propagation bench you can take one leaf and t it up into ten
sections. Each one will develop new shoots at the base of each
section   David Bradshaw, Extension horticulturist. 
                     ********************* 
     If you have questions or comments on gardening-related
issues, write to PSA News & Publications, Box 340129, A-101 Poole
Agricultural Center, Clemson University, Clemson, S.C. 29634-0129.
     You might also want to look for other "Buds and Blooms"
columns under 1999 News Releases at: www.clemson.edu/psamedia.
                             END