Heartleaf Philodendron
Fine across the room from a window, and fine closer as long as it isn’t in the sun. Water every ten days or so. If you forget and it’s twelve, nothing happens.
The most common way people kill this one
Overwatering, then a cold windowsill. It wants to dry out a bit between drinks, and it hates a draught more than it hates being forgotten. Keep it off the sill in winter.
How big it gets
Vines as long as you let it. Cut it back whenever you like and put the cuttings in water — they root in a few weeks and you have another one.
What it doesn’t get along with
Cats and dogs: no. Same as pothos: chewing it means drooling and a sore mouth. Keep it out of reach if something at home chews plants.
Direct sun. It’ll scorch in a window that gets the afternoon beam. Radiators and heating vents dry the air and the soil faster than you’d think — a foot or two away is enough.
A pot with no drainage hole. Water needs somewhere to go; if the pot you like has no hole, keep the plant in its nursery pot and set it inside.
What it’s trying to tell you
Where it came from
Cut from a heartleaf philodendron growing in Wicker Park, rooted in water, potted, and grown on under ordinary room light.
Grown in Wicker Park, Chicago. Most shelves are a few blocks from where it was potted.
If you’ve killed a C, start here
A C wants a rhythm — a fern, a calathea, a fiddle leaf fig. Losing one says nothing about you. This one is a Grade A: it forgives a month of nothing.
The list for people who’ve killed a C. · How the grades work.
Something else? hello@pilf.me. Replies come from a person, usually the same day.