How often should I water the plant?

Do you know what’s wrong with it?

Is it over or under watered?

You know so much about plants what should I do?

I dread when people ask me questions about plants because I honestly don’t know when it comes to their plants. There are so many variables that come into play to result in what’s going on with a plant and I could explain in detail each potential issue the plant could be suffering. I don’t live in your house to know what type of environment the plant is living in, watering schedule, and what substrate it’s potted in. I feel a bit like Chidi from The Good Place when he has options and is paralyzed in his decision making. Too many things could have happened and not enough time to talk about everything in depth that I would rather no one asked me about their plants ahaha.

I see a lot of advice given on subreddits I follow with just black and white answers. Recently I saw a post for a ZZ plant and everyone said don’t water it at all basically, don’t even LOOK in its general direction.

It’s true that ZZ plants aren’t water hogs, but they are still plants. I under water my plants consistently, and I lost a few stems on my ZZ plant last year from it. They do want to be watered.

The environment will determine how often a plant needs to be watered and what type of substrate used will decrease or increase the frequency of watering on top of that. (If a person over waters it’s best to put plants into a highly porous substrate so it drains quickly and dries out faster.)

And I know on social media it’s hard to put all of our knowledge into words and in a comment section no less – we lose some details when we communicate there. Still take the advice though but with a grain of salt. People are trying to help at the end of the day.

I’ve slowly stopped giving out advice so freely and noticed I’m only commenting on posts that are asking about plants I currently own because I know them so well now. I feel like I don’t know a lot about plants that it makes me feel guilty of all the plant advice I so freely gave in my “early” days of plant owning ahaha. Ugh, I don’t even want to think about it.

It takes practice and making mistakes. I had to go through the process and I’m still learning something new every week, ahaha. Plants are fun and while they are alive they’re not like animals or humans and it’s okay to make mistakes with them. As long as I’m learning from those mistakes it’s all good.