What Is The Hardest Houseplant To Grow?

While it's a major bummer, killing a houseplant happens from time to time. But that doesn't mean you should give up on indoor gardening forever. Even supposedly "easy-to-care-for" houseplants, like succulents, pothos, dracaena, and snake plants, can be killed if neglected for too long, according to Better Homes & Gardens.

Sometimes, having a "brown thumb" isn't necessarily the caretaker's fault. If you've lost a few houseplants — whether due to improper watering, sun exposure, or room temperature — you may be picking the wrong plants. "Trust me, there's somebody out there killing the same thing as you," expert gardener Melinda Myers told Real Simple. "There are the over-waterers, who kill a plant with kindness, or the ones who can never remember. The difficulty is matching the plant to the person who will take care of it."

So in the hopes of keeping your houseplant collection alive and thriving, here's a list of the most difficult plants to grow indoors.

While it's nearly impossible to pinpoint the absolute hardest houseplant to grow, the Boston fern (pictured above) has certainly made a name for itself amongst plant parents. According to Plantophiles, the Boston fern is "the most difficult houseplant to grow... ever." Although ferns are finicky houseplants to begin with, the Boston fern requires even more TLC. "These can be tricky — and when they drop leaves, they're a mess," Melinda Myers tells Real Simple. "They suffer in the dry winter air." To make this plant happy, you'll need to keep your home warm and humid, and place the fern in an area that gets frequent yet indirect sunlight. 

Other tough-to-grow plants include moth orchids, tradescantia, fiddle-leaf figs, bird's nest ferns, and crotons. Plantophiles describes the latter plants as "little divas." Ouch. So unless you're willing to put in the extra work — or you have a very green thumb — you should probably refrain from adding any of these tricky plants to your indoor garden.