ZZ Plant
Zamioculcas zamiifolia
Through the year 🗓️
☀️ Summer now
Water slightly more often, but still strictly soak-and-dry.
🍂 Fall
Back to long gaps between drinks.
❄️ Winter
Basically self-sufficient: water about monthly, no feed.
🌱 Spring
New bronze spears emerge; one feed kicks off the growing year.
The details
Light & placement
- Light
- Low to bright indirect; famously unbothered, though you should avoid hot direct sun
- Ideal PPFD
- 50–250 µmol·m⁻²·s⁻¹
- Grow-light distance
- 20–30 in below LED
Water & feed
- Watering method
- Soak-and-dry with long gaps, since its potato-like rhizomes store water. When in doubt, wait another week.
- Fertilizer
- Balanced feed at ½ strength, 2–3× a year in the growing season.
Home & habit
- Soil
- Free-draining mix with grit/perlite; pH 6.0–7.0
- Humidity
- Any; genuinely indifferent
- Temperature
- 60–85 °F
- Mature size
- 2–3 ft
- Repotting
- Every 2–3 yrs; rhizomes can bow plastic pots
- Propagation
- Division of rhizomes; single leaflets root in soil (slow, taking months).
When something looks wrong
- Overwatering signs
- Yellowing stems collapsing at the base; mushy rhizomes
- Underwatering signs
- Wrinkled stalks, dropping leaflets (takes months of neglect)
- Common pests
- Rarely troubled; occasional mealybugs or scale
Common problems 🩺
The usual suspects when ZZ Plant looks unhappy. Most houseplant trouble is watering or light, not disease — see all plant problems if you are not sure which plant is the culprit.
Yellowing leaves
Likely cause
Overwatering — the ZZ stores water in its rhizomes and rots if kept wet.
What to do
Let the soil dry out completely between waterings. When in doubt, wait another week.
Leaves dropping off
Likely cause
Usually severe overwatering; occasionally deep drought.
What to do
Check the soil. Soggy means ease off and let it dry; bone-dry for months means water.
Leggy, stretched stems
Likely cause
Very low light — it survives it but does not stay compact.
What to do
Move it somewhere brighter (still indirect) for denser growth.
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