Keeping plants alive

There are two ways to keep plants alive: get better at it, or remove the part where they need to be alive at all. Today leans toward the second option, with a brick-built shortcut and one honest piece of outdoor furniture for the plants that still have to fend for themselves.

Start with the one that never wilts. the hanging dragon ivy set builds a trailing plant that stays exactly as trailing as the instructions intended, no watering schedule required, no yellowing leaves to explain to anyone.

For a desk that could use something green without the commitment, the spoon plant kit assembles into a single potted piece, the kind of decoration that looks deliberate rather than like an office plant nobody waters.

Kids get their own version too. the swinging flowers set has moving parts built into the stems, so the plant actually does something, which is more than can be said for most windowsill greenery.

For anyone collecting rather than displaying, the Icons miniplants collection gathers a handful of small builds into one botanical set, the sort of thing that ends up in a row on a shelf whether or not that was the plan.

And then there is the real thing. the set of four planters is rated frost resistant, which matters more than most spec sheets once autumn does what autumn does to anything left outside in a pot.