100% Foolproof Guide To Houseplants For Dumb People Who Think They Suck at Houseplants

I thought being able to keep plants alive was dependent on my thumb; a green thumb was yet another cool genetic thing I missed out on like 20/20 vision or the desire to try hard at literally anything.

That is a load of horse piss.

It turns out I had a different defect: not a brown thumb, just a dumb brain.

Being dumb is fine! It’s normal. It’s something we’re actually born with, every single one of us. Over the years we slowly beat it out of ourselves by Googling shit. If you are here, you have decided to take your first step in undumbing yourself, and for that I congratulate you. The good news is it’s WAY EASIER than you thought. All you need to know to start being the kind of person who is good at house plants are Alex’s Three Stupid Principles for Keeping Plants Alive (Plus Swear Words).

Principle #1: Survival of the Fittest

I will begin with a very important thing you need to know about houseplants: they die sometimes. It’s terribly tragic. A precious life was in your hands and you snuffed it out. You are a monster.

ALTERNATELY HOW ABOUT YOU CHILL THE FUCK OUT, HUH?

It’s a plant. It doesn’t have plant friends that will track you down to enact revenge. And even if it did, they wouldn’t be able to enact that revenge because they don’t have hands. Revenge requires hands.

While it does hurt to throw away a plant corpse (YOU MONSTER), if you buy a new plant to replace it, you’ll be shocked how quickly your heart moves on. Because it was just a stupid plant.

The way you used to do it: Buy a plant. Swear this time it’ll be different. Water it sometimes. Watch it die.

The way you should do it instead: Don’t buy a plant. Buy three plants. When one dies, replace it with another plant. Ta da! Now you always have a couple plants that are alive!

What I think you’ll find is that you have to dispose of plant corpses less and less as time goes on because you’ve done something neat: you’ve created a fucked up little science experiment to find plants that can survive your abuse and neglect.

Plants vary widely in how much and which kinds of torture they can endure. If you buy a few, you’ll eventually find the ones that can survive in your particular house with your particularly terrible oversight. It’s evolution by unnatural selection.

You don’t even need to try harder with this method. Use the wrong pot, the wrong dirt, the wrong watering schedule, the wrong light. You’re a harsh god, but one who has a lot of other shit to think about, so it’s understandable. Something will eventually survive. Shit, something will actually love that awful treatment. I’m one of those plants; I always play better for a mean coach.

Before you know it, you’ve Darwinned yourself three plants that think you’re amazing. Or at least tolerable.

Principle #2: Don’t Water So Much, You Dumb Fuck

When it comes to showing your plant that you care, you’ve got a control panel with just one button: water. Is it wilting? Water it. Brown tips? How about a hit of that sweet water. You’re lonely and the only thing that’ll make you feel better is knowing something, anything won’t abandon you? Water that shit!

You press your one button over and over and then it dies. You just loved your plant to death, Mice and Men style.

Knock it the fuck off.

Here’s something I noticed: the desert has a lot of cool-ass plants.

Or if you prefer a darker metaphor (because, like me, you also play better for a mean coach), think of it this way: you can survive for three days without drinking water, but only three minutes under it.

Thirst is easier to survive than drowning for people, and for most plants. Chill with the water, you brainless shitrabbit.

It’s especially bad because people who think they have the thumb-curse buy plants that are “unkillable”. The plants that are sold as “hardy” are the ones that survive on less water, not more, creating this terribly sad cycle of cursed people drowning desert plants and then feeling awful about it.

Stop watering your god damn plants!

Let them dry out. Let them wilt. Let em get all fucking drama-queen looking and THEN hit ‘em with the water. They’ll bounce back and you’ll feel great. Bonus: it’s a mean kind of fun to deprive and revive plants. Try it. You’ll like it. You sick fuck.

Don’t get an app or set reminders or make calendar events or buy one of those expensive watering cans that measures how much water you’re giving everything. You’re not making a god damned souffle. Just touch the dirt and if it’s super dry, water it. Otherwise, super don’t.

Bonus tip!

You’re using pots with drainage holes in the bottom, right? YOU FUCKING BETTER BE. If you’ve got drainage holes, you’re watering a plant. If you don’t, you’re waterboarding it.

The #1 Alpha Prime Master Rule of Not Killing Plants If it doesn’t have holes in the bottom, it’s not a pot, it’s a fucking murder vessel.

I know, I know. It’s sad as shit that all the cute planters don’t have drainage. But that’s the way it is. Life is pain. Get yourself some ugly ass pots with holes.

Principle #3: Get A Fucking Snake Plant

Snake plant does not give a shit.

Snake plant will live anywhere and put up with anything.

Snake plant is the earth’s way of flipping humans off for thinking we’re so smart.

The only thing snake plants hate is too much water, but you don’t overwater any more because you read #2 and believed it because I wrote it with an authoritative air.

Get a snake plant and almost never water it.

But but but I really want to water it!

STOP IT, YOU DUMB FUCKING IDIOT.