The Martlet

Dear Miss Martlet: I like having plants around, but I’m in a basement suite without much light. I’ve forgotten to water most of the plants I’ve owned in the past, and they die. What kind of plant am I least likely to kill (and don’t say a cactus)?

• Hopeless

Dear Hopeless:

You might not have much luck with that cactus either — they require hours of direct sunlight to survive. But there’s more than one way to grow your green thumb, even under a shady basement roof.

Your best match will be the low maintenance plant type. Think you know the one — stubby, bristly, hard to tell apart from a foot scrubber? Guess again. There’s an array of foliage just blossoming with possibilities.

For little indoor light and sporadic watering tendencies, try ivy (especially fond of low light), spider plants (a drop of water, and they don’t complain), wax plants (happy hung up by any window) and snake plants (nicknamed the mother-inlaw plant: almost impossible to get rid of). These plants take what you give them, offer some greenery and

blossom youngsters straight from the stem.

For plants one-step up in the care class, bamboo makes an exotic easy-to-care-for choice when the stems are kept immersed in water. So does English ivy (a trooper through soil and water) and the Wandering Jew plant (a purple favourite among houseplant enthusiasts). They might not be California palms, but these leafy greens will flourish with

a little love.

If you’re ever ready to step it up a notch you could try a Zygopetalum, an attractive type of orchid, that thrives in moderate light (think front-row window seat) and only needs water once a week.

It does enjoy the occasional mist from a spray-bottle, though, and Zygos prefer a warm environment — so don’t let your room sink below 10 degrees Celsius.

Another option: invest in a terrarium or a fish tank with a proper light. Granted, most people aren’t growing daisies with this set-up, but boxed-in lighting and humid temperatures can grow just about anything underground.

Then again, if you find yourself only stepping further away from the grower’s wagon, there’s always that fancy array of plastic plants ready for picking down at your local craft store — and those ones bloom on command.