I once agreed to take care of a friend's plant while they were overseas - it was a terrifying day-to-day experience. Don't ask your friends to look after a plant.
It's tough to take care of a human infant or a puppy. It's extremely easy to care for a fish or a plant.
Then again, some people can't even be responsible for themselves.
Apart from the supposedly easy one I have that is always unhappy no matter what I do. And yet it refuses to die, it only.. almost dies. For years now.
We water it randomly, at one stage we estimate we forgot to water it for around 6 months. Other times due to a lack of communication we have both watered it multiple times in a week. It appears to be invulnerable to poor watering discipline.
Currently it is living in direct sunlight but it has lived in permanent shade for a extended period as well.
I don't know why I'm telling you this, it probably doesn't help knowing that your friends has high maintenance plants when there are invincible ones like ours in the world as well.
Apparently all of the Draceana family are easy to look after.
If I forget to water, some leaves will turn yellow but quickly recover once water is available again.
Oh, and it had half of it sawn off at one point because it grew too large, the other half is now also a very presentable little plant.
Researching after the fact, we discovered that some species are notoriously difficult to care for.
Plants need a schedule to do well and some are very sensitive if they get too much or too little water too often or too late.
A two or three of our plants died while the friend was looking after them in the past due to under watering (and we were gone for only about a week every time). So last time when we came back we found most pots were flooded with water, which to most plants is just as bad as not being watered.
It's only now that I think about how this small favour we ask of our friend can be stressful to him.
I get liking plants, but I don't want their maintenance to be yet another painful chore. I want plants that survive no matter what I do. Fortunately, my plants seem to select themselves based on that criterium.
For me people who need to educate friends about how to deal with their plants are playing on a different field, in a different game altogether (and I’ll flat refuse to deal with kind of PITA)
because my banana plants are by far the most forgiving things i've got (i live in germany). They grow and multiply like crazy and you can never give them too much water.
Going away for two weeks in summer? there might be a little brown after you'll be back, but that hardly matters with the speed they grow.
Sure, most plants will not die within a week, but a lot will suffer enough and will take months to recover.
With mine it always boils down to
* feed half a can per cat twice a day
* $pickyCat prefers this stack of cans
* feed $lessPickyCat separate so he can't steal the other one's food
Unlike plants, cats don't randomly die because you fed them an hour late or because they had to skip a meal two days ago.
Dog people say cats are evil but some plants just seem to be intent on killing themselves.
- Refill all four water containers - Give them large, heavy dishes full of water because Cat A likes to Knock Shit Over to see if there's water in there. (My hardwood floor has a damaged section because of this: OK if cleaned up fast, not OK if left over the weekend in hot weather.) - Mix in treats so that cat A eats all of her food - Cats B and C like to eat Cat A's food, so feed her in a separate room, then open the door 5 minutes later.
I believe the friend is eager to learn and loves plants himself, but but maybe finding a friend who doesn't kill their own plants would be a good start...