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How to Kill Your Houseplants |
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Written by Rand Lee
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 Since all of us at Payne’s are such highly trained nursery professionals, you could be forgiven for imagining that we grow to perfection everything we attempt. If only that were true. The fact is (and every honest nurseryperson will admit this) that the best gardeners learn to grow things by killing them first. That’s because the best gardeners are good observers who (1) never read instructions and (2) learn from their mistakes.
To save you time, here are some tips for getting the killing part of your horticultural education out of the way, so that you can go on to become as fabulous a gardener as we at Payne’s are said to be (I report this humbly). This list focuses on houseplanticide, because houseplants croak so swiftly and spectacularly — far more quickly than outdoor plants, such as roses, that normally take ages to perish.
To kill most houseplants, all you have to do is:
Horticide Ploy Number 1: Keep your houseplants’ soil soaking wet at all times. To ensure this, plant them in pots without drainage holes. Failing this, place saucers under their pots and do not empty the saucers no matter how full of water they get. Standing water around the base of a pot is sure to suffocate the plant within by depriving it of oxygen and encouraging fungus diseases. A month or so of this treatment, and any houseplant will become as slimy and stinky as can be. Try it for yourself and see! (Warning: this ploy does not work so well with aquatics. For tips on killing them, see No. 2 following.)
Horticide Ploy Number 2: Never water your houseplants, no matter how dry their soil gets. Imagine they are green rocks, not living creatures; plant “material,” not plants; decorative objects, not creatures that need regular care. If possible, place your plants — particularly those said to be shade- or coolth-loving — in a south- or west-facing window, where they will be treated to the full, exhilarating heat of the Santa Fe summer sun. Two weeks of this treatment will reduce most houseplants to crackly, blackened tumbleweeds. (Warning: this ploy does not work so well with most cacti. For tips on killing them, see No. 1 above.)
Horticide Ploy Number 3: Pot up your plant in the heaviest, densest potting medium you can find. If this doesn’t kill your houseplant outright, then it will at least weaken it to the point where it can be killed readily by some other agency. Many garden centers carry wildly inappropriate potting media, sometimes labeled, innocently enough, “Garden Soil.” (Heft the bag. If it is very heavy for its size, it should work just fine for your murderous purposes. Proper houseplant potting media tend to be light in weight.) Whatever soil you use, make sure it contains no drainage-enhancing additives, like sand or perlite (which is superheated lava rock that looks like little white Rice Krispies).
Another way to determine if your potting medium is heavy enough is to water it thoroughly, and see how long it takes for the water to drain through the soil mass. A well-drained mix will let the excess moisture through within a few minutes.A properly lethal potting soil will take a long time to let the water through; often it will tend to puddle on the surface. Alternatively, take up a fistful of the well-watered medium and close your fingers hard around it. If the wet soil forms a compact gluey mass in your hand, that either oozes out through your fingers like the Blob or remains a heavy lump when your open your palm flat, the soil is just right for houseplanticide. Gluey waterlogged soil kills plants the same way overwatering does: by depriving roots of the oxygen they need to survive.
Horticide Ploy Number 4: Another longer term plant murder ploy is to never, never, never feed your plants. “What about my potting soil?” you ask. “Won’t that keep the plants going for a while?” Not likely. Most potting soils contain few or no nutriments. In fact, pure peat moss is probably the best all-round potting soil for the starvation technique of houseplanticide. It is a completely inert material, containing absolutely zero biological life and no nutriments whatsoever. Who could ask for anything more? I mean, less?
Of course, you can help the starvation process along by making sure that you let all your plants get as rootbound as possible, and never repot them into larger containers. Desperate for nurture, their roots will circle their pots until they form an impenetrable rootball. Within a year of such treatment, your plants’ leaves should start developing a yellowish cast. Their new growth will be sparser and sparser; their flowers and fruits fewer and fewer. Eventually, the plants will look so wretched you’ll throw them out in triumph. Voilà! Mission accomplished!
Horticide Ploy Number 5: Deprive your plants of the light they need. Such a simple murder technique, and surefire! Just put the light-lovers in the darkest spot possible and the shade-lovers in the hottest, brightest spot possible. It’s amazing how quickly even the healthiest houseplant will decline when cheated of, or overexposed to, Northern New Mexico’s happy Señor Sol.
Horticide Ploy Number 6: Never treat your plants for pests and diseases. Spider-mites, white fly, fungus gnats, mealybugs, scale — the variety of planticidal critters available to the murderous gardener is wide and colorful. When you spot their webs, or their little bodies on the undersides of your plant’s stems and leaves, or are enveloped in a cloud of their fluttering little wings, just do nothing, and your houseplant’s demise is assured. Similarly, ignore any blackening leaf-edges, mushy stems and roots, or discolored fresh growth that may come to your attention during the course of the growing year. Child’s play!
Horticide Ploy Number 7: Are you a dog owner? Then your horticidal aspirations are assured! No plant can survive for long when sprayed regularly with pooch juice! Encouraging your cat to use your plant-containers as kitty litter boxes also works splendidly. If your cat seems reluctant to do so, just sprinkle some dried catnip leaves in your pots. If Kitty doesn’t kill your plants by peeing on them, she’ll do ‘em in in her frenzy of catnip lust. (See my latest pamphlet: “Catnip: Harmless Medicinal or Gateway Drug?”)
— Copyright 2008 Rand B. Lee. Rand Lee is a garden writer and lecturer, former President & Founder of the North American Cottage Garden Society, and former Perennials Manager for Payne's North. You may contact him at Payne's South Marketing Department via telephone (505-988-9626) or email (
This e-mail address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it
).
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Outrageous Gardener 
