Chinese money plant

Eastern Australian temperate forests

Fynbos shrubland

New Zealand North Island temperate forests

A spring-flowering bulb grown for dense upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped florets in blue, purple, pink, red, or white - famous for an intense, sometimes overpowering fragrance. Plant bulbs in mid-fall for an April bloom; flower quality typically declines after the first year, so the densest spikes often need replanting every couple of seasons. Every part of the bulb is mildly toxic and the sap can cause contact dermatitis, so gloves are advised when planting.

What it needs

Conditions

Light

Part shade

Water

Moderate water

Spacing

8"

Habit

Compact, erect, clumping evergreen perennial with a short, usually unbranched stem, succulent above and woody at the base, crowned with round, peltate leaves on long stalks

Care tips

•

Give it bright, indirect light; NC State Extension says too little light makes it leggy.

•

Water the potting mix, not the leaves, and let it drain: NC State Extension warns that overwatering rots the roots and wet foliage gets leaf spots.

•

Keep it away from cold drafts and heat sources. Unless you garden in zone 9 or warmer it stays indoors, and the RHS treats it as a plant for a frost-free place.

Lifecycle

Planting

Grow it indoors in a pot of moist, well-drained potting mix in bright, indirect light, as NC State Extension advises; the RHS says to grow it under glass or anywhere frost-free. Outdoors NC State rates it for USDA zones 9a to 11b, where it suits a container on a shaded patio.

Transplanting

Keep it away from cold drafts and from heat sources, which NC State Extension says it needs to avoid. NC State says it thrives in moderate to high humidity but tolerates the average home; the RHS says it needs high humidity. Pot pups and cuttings into the same moist, well-drained mix as the parent.

Early growth

Keep the mix moist but never waterlogged: NC State Extension warns that overwatering causes root rot and that wetting the leaves can cause leaf spots, so water the soil rather than the foliage. Give it plenty of bright, indirect light, because NC State says too little light makes it leggy.

Maturity

NC State Extension gives 8 to 12 inches tall and as wide, with leaves about 4 inches across; the RHS gives a plant to 12 inches or more with leaves to 4 inches. In the wild the Flora of China records stems 6 to 16 inches tall and leaf blades 1 to 3.5 inches long on stalks 0.8 to 6.7 inches long. Houseplants rarely flower. Watch for spider mites, mealybugs, fungus gnats and scale insects (NC State); the RHS adds powdery mildew.

Propagation

NC State Extension recommends pups (offsets) and stem cuttings, taken in spring or early summer while the plant is growing actively; the RHS adds seed and division, detaching the young rosettes in spring. Wikipedia says the pups grow both from the stem and from underground shoots.

Plant this, not that

Better fit for this place

For Chicago, IL, these are replacement suggestions: similar plants with a stronger hardiness fit now and/or in 2050.

Hyacinthus orientalis

Common hyacinth

The famous carnivorous bog plant - a low clumping rosette of hinged, jaw-like snap-traps fringed with stiff "teeth" that close on insects that touch their trigger hairs. Despite its worldwide fame and houseplant ubiquity, Dionaea muscipula is native to a single tiny region: the wet, fire-maintained pine savannas and bogs within roughly a 75-mile radius of Wilmington, North Carolina (and adjacent South Carolina). It is globally rare in the wild and poaching of wild plants is a serious, criminalized conservation problem, so buy only nursery-propagated stock. It is also far more demanding than its reputation suggests: it needs nutrient-poor acidic peat-and-sand soil, mineral-free water, full sun, and a genuine cool winter dormancy - and it declines and dies if treated as an ordinary warm year-round houseplant.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Dionaea muscipula

Venus flytrap

Hylotelephium 'Herbstfreude'

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Autumn-joy stonecrop

A clump-forming herbaceous perennial grown for its showy late-season flower heads: masses of tiny star-like flowers borne in flattened cymes 3 to 6 inches across that emerge rosy pink, deepen to rose-red, and fade to coppery-rust as they die. Gray-green, fleshy, succulent-like leaves form upright clumps to about 24 inches. Easily grown in dry-to-medium, well-drained soil in full sun, it is drought tolerant and attracts butterflies, and its foliage and dead inflorescences persist into winter for added interest.

Easter lily reaches most people the way almost nothing else in this catalog does: as a forced gift plant in a foil-wrapped pot, in full white trumpet in March or April, months before its real season. Left to itself in a garden Lilium longiflorum flowers in July and August, and Missouri Botanical Garden files it under the plainer name trumpet lily. Everything about the pot version is engineered - bulbs lifted in autumn from a narrow strip of the California and Oregon coast, cooled, potted, held under a temperature schedule that lands the buds on a date that moves by up to five weeks a year, and kept short with growth retardants. That is why the plant you were given is 16 to 20 inches tall and the same plant in the ground is 2 to 3 feet. The single most important sentence in this record is not horticultural. This is the species behind the veterinary literature on feline lily poisoning: every part of it, including the pollen and the water in the vase, causes acute kidney injury in cats, less than one leaf can be enough, and untreated cases die in 36 to 72 hours. It is also the lily that enters houses in quantity, which is the whole problem. If there is a cat in the house, this plant does not come in the door. Beyond that, be clear about what it is not. It is not a hardy garden bulb in the way the regal lily in this wave is - Missouri Botanical Garden rates it zone 4 to 8, which is the most generous number in circulation for a subtropical island endemic, and much US extension guidance says 5 to 8. It is not a widespread wild species either: Kew's native range is the Ryukyu Islands, Taiwan, southern Japan and the Philippines, and nothing else. A globally traded flower with a natural range you could drive across in a day.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Lilium longiflorum

Easter lily

Hippeastrum x hybridum is a complex garden hybrid derived from six or more wild Hippeastrum species native to tropical and subtropical South America, developed through intensive breeding since the late 18th century and now the dominant "amaryllis" sold worldwide as a holiday bulb. It produces spectacular trumpet-shaped flowers - 5 to 8 inches across - on stout leafless scapes in red, pink, white, orange, salmon, or bicolour, making it one of the most dramatic winter-flowering houseplants available. The honest catch is toxicity: the entire plant, especially the bulb, contains lycorine and related alkaloids at concentrations that cause vomiting, salivation, tremors, and hypotension in pets and children, so it must be placed out of reach and handled with care.

Better fit now and in 2050

Now: well-suited

2050: well-suited

Similar plants

Browse lateral options with similar roles, light needs, size, or native-range overlap; these are not filtered for a better climate fit.

Open pink and white Hippeastrum hybrid flowers showing trumpet-shaped blooms with prominent stamens in a garden setting

Hippeastrum x hybridum

Amaryllis

A tropical aroid from the warm, humid rainforests of Colombia and Ecuador, where it grows as an epiphyte, and one of the best-known flowering houseplants. Also called flamingo flower, it carries glossy, heart-shaped leaves and long-lasting, waxy spathes, most often bright red but also pink, orange, white or green, each around a short upright spadix. NC State Extension says each bloom lasts up to four weeks and the plant flowers several times a year, and the Missouri Botanical Garden says it can flower year round in the right conditions. That takes bright, indirect light, steady warmth and high humidity, and outside USDA zone 11 and warmer it lives indoors. NC State Extension, the RHS and Wikipedia all warn that every part contains calcium oxalate, harmful to people and pets if chewed and irritating to skin and eyes.

Part sun / Part shade

Schlumbergera x buckleyi

Christmas cactus

The true Christmas cactus - the hybrid Schlumbergera x buckleyi - a long-lived epiphytic holiday cactus grown indoors almost everywhere for its arching, segmented stems and its rose-to-magenta flowers that open in mid-winter, around Christmas. It is worth getting the identity right, because most plants sold and labeled as 'Christmas cactus' are actually the Thanksgiving cactus, Schlumbergera truncata. You can tell the two apart by the edges of the flat stem segments and by when they bloom: the true Christmas cactus has rounded, scalloped segment margins and flowers a few weeks later, in mid-winter, while the Thanksgiving cactus has sharp, claw-like teeth and blooms from late fall into early winter. Unlike a desert cactus, this is a forest epiphyte that grows on tree branches in the Atlantic coastal forest of southeastern Brazil, so it wants bright indirect light, a free-draining mix, sparing water, and - to set its buds - cool nights and short days. A reassuring point that sets it apart from many houseplants: it is non-toxic to cats and dogs. One more field mark clinches it: the true Christmas cactus has rose-pink pollen and flowers that hang almost regularly (radially), where the Thanksgiving cactus has yellow pollen and asymmetric blooms held out nearly horizontally.

Hyacinthus orientalis

Common hyacinth

A spring-flowering bulb grown for dense upright spikes of waxy, star-shaped florets in blue, purple, pink, red, or white - famous for an intense, sometimes overpowering fragrance. Plant bulbs in mid-fall for an April bloom; flower quality typically declines after the first year, so the densest spikes often need replanting every couple of seasons. Every part of the bulb is mildly toxic and the sap can cause contact dermatitis, so gloves are advised when planting.

Cushion haworthia is a tiny, choice, clump-forming succulent whose plump, soft, blue-green leaves end in translucent "windows" - in the wild the plant pulls itself down into the soil and lets light reach its inner tissues through these clear leaf tips, an adaptation to the bright, dry Karoo light. POWO (Kew) places it native to the Eastern Cape of South Africa (Cape Provinces). It is a jewel for a pot or a windowsill rather than a garden plant. Unusually for this group of succulents, it prefers BRIGHT INDIRECT light or part shade rather than harsh full sun, which scorches and reddens it; give it sharp drainage and water sparingly during growth, far less in winter. OVERWATERING - and cold, wet soil - is the main way it dies, and it is FROST-TENDER (RHS rates it tender, H1c-H2), so almost everywhere it is grown as a houseplant or in a frost-free greenhouse. It is grown for its jewel-like translucent foliage, not as a food plant, and it rarely flowers in cultivation.

A compact succulent perennial from Madagascar, grown as a flowering pot plant for its dense heads of small red, orange, yellow, pink or white flowers held above thick, glossy, scallop-edged leaves. It is toxic: the ASPCA lists Kalanchoe as toxic to dogs and cats, and NC State Extension warns that eating it can sicken people and can kill pets. The RHS calls it flaming Katy, and NC State Extension and UF/IFAS also know it as Christmas kalanchoe. It is a short-day plant: NC State and the Missouri Botanical Garden say it sets flower buds only after about six weeks of 14-hour nights, so a plant kept in a lit room may not bloom again. Outside USDA zones 10 and warmer it lives indoors.

Part shade / Part sun

Kalanchoe blossfeldiana

Flaming kalanchoe