Heythere, so sorry you're having a down moment. You're in so much company though, everybody loses plants. Since everyone's conditions and styles vary, what may be easy for one person might be silly to even try for another. I'm a messy waterer too, and most of the time my pots have dirt on the outside, and so many of them are undergoing weird experiments that make them unrelatable to a lot of people. It's all good. Keep doing your thing and you'll find a groove & some plants that love what you're doing.

FWIW, most of the plants you mentioned have more of a reputation for being difficult than easy.

If you're looking for suggestions that might work better in the conditions you have available, what are the conditions? Available windows? Do you like a warm or cool house? If you're looking for some pointers about your existing plants, adding some pics of them would be a great way to start.

When I first discovered what bonsai was while at a business meeting in a CHI hotel, I knew I HAD to learn how to replicate the extraordinary trees I was seeing. I rushed home, tried it, failed miserably w/o even knowing why, and put it aside. The key element in this story is that I didn't give up on something I wanted so badly to be able to do. Just because I set the trees aside, didn't mean that I put bonsai out of my mind. Instead of wasting time by trial and error, I hit the books (this was before the net). When I brought live trees back into the equation several (3-4) years later, I found I was able to keep my trees alive and healthy. I'd learned quite a bit about how different container soils must be to keep plants in pots healthy, and a fair amount about what makes plants tick. The bare basics of what took 3-4 years to learn on my own, can now be learned in half an afternoon of reading w/o even leaving this site.

What makes growing difficult and frustrates you/us is the fact that we too often offer our plants cultural conditions way out on the fringe of what they are genetically programmed to tolerate, with the expectation they'll turn out to be beautiful specimens. That rarely (might as well say never) happens because the stress and strain of dealing with conditions at the fringe is made manifest in our plants' appearance.

This will help (click me.) It will also leave you with the sense that the air:water ratio in the soil has a predominant influence on root health, which has predominant influence on the o/a health of the organism - no such thing as a healthy plant if it ain't got a healthy root system. Your largest single step forward will come as an understanding of how to control that ratio to best serve the plant, which, in the end best serves you. If after reading what's at the link you feel like you're on the right track and still have interest in upping your game, I can link you to a thread that explains how to manage the air:water ratio in soils - not as hard as it sounds - only a couple of easy to grasp principles involved.

Al

Much comes down to paying attention to what a plant needs and what you can provide. Most plant murders are the result of overwatering, wrong media (soil) choice for that plant (not all houseplants want the same media), and/or wrong light.

With that in mind, as Tiff mentioned, take stock of what conditions you can provide ... and keep in mind that may change over the course of the year -- particularly if you live in the Great White North.

1) Where do you live?

1. 2) What are your house temps?

3. 3) What kind of lighting can you provide? Windowsills? Lighted plant stands? DO NOT assume that just because the light in an area "looks bright" to you that it is actually bright enough for the plant(s).

5. 4) If you will grow on windowsills, what direction do the windows face AND how much sun comes through those windows and for how long? (Just because a window faces west or east does not mean one gets a lot of light in that window. If there are large trees, large overhangs, or another house/building close by, a window may get very little sun coming in.)

7. 5) What kind of waterer are you? Do you tend to forget about the plants for weeks at time? Do you try to "mother" your plants, fussing over them constantly and watering frequently?

Number 4 is so true. My neighbor on the west side replaced the white painted slats with beige siding so now my plants don't get nearly as much light as they used to. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it.

I’ve managed to (almost) kill a peace lily. It was down to the bulb and only revived it as an experiment. But it was practically dead.

I think selecting the right plants for the conditions you have is half the battle. If you try to grow a plant that is just not suitable in your environment, it’s going to be a struggle to keep it alive and probably impossible to make it flourish.

I work for an office plant company. I learned long ago that every one that's ever worked here has a blind spot: a plant they just don't get. Mine is Fatsia Japonica. I water them, they droop. I don't water them, they droop.

I even did a post on my blog about it.

Often you can see a link between someone's "watering style" and what they kill -I have a couple of older guys who drench everything, so quele surprise they kill the dry loving plants, but it's not always that cut & dried.

Have you tried any of the truly easy plants like pothos, sanseveria, jade?

I’m a Succulent murderer!! They just don’t seem to survive around me! And it’s funny cause I think I kill them by underwatering

Peace lily. So easy to grow,except for me.

I've been useing pumice it my soil mix with very little organic matter,and vermiculite . So far its been really nice fore plants that need lots of water.

laticauda(OK - zone 7)

" My neighbor on the west side replaced the white painted slats with beige siding so now my plants don't get nearly as much light as they used to. I'm not sure what I'm going to do about it."

Simple solution. Next time he goes on vacation or leaves for a weekend, paint that side of his house white again. I'm sure he'd never notice. heh

LOL,think he'd notice?