I have a confession to make: I kill houseplants. I love the idea of houseplants and long to turn my apartment into a jungle, but my previous flirtations with being a plant parent have ended in disaster. Even supposedly easy-to-care-for plants like spider plants and Boston ferns die in my inept and apparently cold-hearted care, as I almost always end up drowning them.
Because of my history as a horror-ticulturist, I am always on the lookout for some sort of silver bullet that will miraculously turn me into a green thumb. That's how I found Easyplant. The brand sells a variety plants in a proprietary self-watering pot that you just need to fill with water once a month and that makes it impossible to overwater your plants. Could this be the remedy for my plant-murderin' ways? To find out, I got in touch with Easyplant to request a majesty palm — a gorgeous tropical plant I'd long wanted but had been intimidated by its alleged finickiness — and have been testing it for half a year.
Easyplant: What We Think
Easyplant is indeed an easy plant to take care of. After nearly six months of ownership, my plant has not only not died but is thriving and has even sprouted some new growth. Watering the plant is as easy as checking the reservoir every few weeks and filling it up once it's empty — no second-guessing is involved.
That said, plants require more than water to live, so you still need to make sure the plant is getting adequate sunlight, rotate it once in a while and do other things to keep it healthy. And then there's the biggest issue: It's not possible to repot the plant into another Easyplant pot, which makes the experience feel like a bit of a tease.
The plant lives up to its name and is easy to care for
My Easyplant arrived alive and fully assembled in an enormous box. After cutting away the cardboard, I was presented with a beautiful (and huge) palm tree sitting in a nice beige-colored pot and filled with soil. There was an instruction card inside, but it was for a different kind of plant: the similar cat palm. After a quick check on Easyplant's website to confirm that I did indeed have the majesty palm I'd requested, I followed the brief instructions: place the plant in a place where it gets some direct sunlight, lift off the lid on the pot and fill it with water and that's it. Done. It can't possibly be that easy, can it?
As it turns out, it is. The Easyplant pot works in such a way that the plant only drinks when it needs water, and it gathers that water from below. You never water the soil directly, so there's no risk of flooding anything, and unlike n0n-easy plants, you never have to second guess whether or not it's time to water. If the reservoir is empty, then you fill it back up with water (I use filtered, room-temperature water). If it's not empty, then you just let it continue doing its thing until it is. In my case, the water runs out between every three and four weeks and I fill it back up. That's it, easy peasy. I will say though, that the reservoir never gets bone dry. There's always a tiny bit of water left, and I found out early on that when it stays at that tiny level for a few days that means it's effectively empty.
But it won't do everything for you
Obviously, water isn't the only factor that plays a role in a plant's health. There's also sunlight, humidity, soil quality, etc. The soil isn't something you have to worry about with Easyplant. It comes all set up in the pot and is packed tightly — honestly, I never have to think about it. The sunlight, however, is something you'll need to be sure to get right, which is as easy as checking Easyplant's website for your plant's specific lighting requirements. I also rotate my plant from time to time to make sure all sides are getting adequate sun, a trick I picked up from independent research.
Then there's the humidity. A couple of weeks after I received my Easyplant, I noticed some yellowing and browning of some of the leaves. Concerned that my beautiful new friend was dying, I reached out to Easyplant and was told that the plant was likely just adjusting to its new environment. I was instructed to trim off the brown bits and see how it did. And that was likely true to an extent, given that this is a tropical plant from Madagascar and I live in Connecticut and received it in January. But some independent research led me to believe that the dry winter air was also likely causing problems.
With the option of either setting up a humidifier next to my plant or getting a plant mister, I decided on the latter and began misting my palm with water every night before bed. This made a big difference, as the plant has perked up since then and I haven't had any issues with browning since, save for one frond that died (this could very well have been a result of my cats, who are obsessed with chewing on the plant). I've even had some new growth in the form of one large frond that recently opened up (just about a week ago) and another that has sprouted.
There are a ton of plants to choose from
If majesty palms aren't your thing (which sounds crazy to me, but whatever), that's no biggie, as Easyplant offers a ton of different plant options. They're broken down into four categories by size on the Easyplant website: small, medium, large and huge. Majesty palms, for reference, are considered huge, while the small, medium and large categories all include different sizes of popular plants like snake plants and money trees.
Easyplant, like some other popular plant sellers such as Bloomscape (which is where I got my wooden plant stand, btw), also provides info about the plants you're shopping, such as whether or not their pet-friendly. This sort of information is pretty critical to me, given how my aforementioned felines enjoy chomping down on my houseplants and generally driving me crazy.
Repotting is basically impossible — for now
All in all, I've been extremely happy with my Easyplant, but I am worried for its future. All houseplants, at some point in their lives, need to be repotted. When they get too big for the pot they're in they can drain the soil of all its nutrients and their roots can get bound up to the point where they can't get any water. But how does one go about repotting a plant that's effectively built into a special pot with a built-in self-watering system?
Apparently, you don't, at least not yet. The FAQ on Easyplant's website addresses the repotting question by simply saying, "Your plant will be happy and healthy in its Easyplant pot for at least 12-18 months." That's it. No instructions on how to go about actually repotting it. Furthermore, Easyplant doesn't sell the pots on their own, so if I were to try and repot my palm when the time comes, I would have to just put it into a regular pot with regular soil and water it like a regular houseplant — nothing easy about that.
I reached out to Easyplant to ask how I could go about repotting my plant and was told that I should be good for the first 18 months at least, and that the brand was currently "working on a repotting kit that will be available soon." The impression I got was that the repotting kit will be released sometime before June, 2024 when my 18 months is up, but I was not able to obtain a concrete release date. Until the repotting kit arrives, it's hard to view Easyplant as being more than a nice rental of convenient technology.
Easyplant Alternatives
As far as brands that will sell you a living plant all set up inside a self-watering pot, Easyplant is the only name in the game, as far as I know. However, if you want to put in more of the legwork yourself, there are a ton of self-watering pots out there from places like Amazon, Target, Home Depot and even Nordstrom. Granted, they involve a good deal more skill and are certainly not as easy to use as Easyplant, but they'll save you a bit of coin.
