Hey everyone what's up welcome back my name's Kevin. I'm the founder of epic gardening.com and this is the epic gardening podcast Today we're talking about a house plant that is nearly unkillable and And no, it actually isn't the ZZ plant or

Zambio cocoa Zamifolia, it is the cast iron plant or aspidistra elyator.

Now, as you might guess with a name cast iron, it is an extremely hardy plant. In fact, it's native to the Osumi islands of Japan, where it inhabits the forest

floors there.

New species of the plant are being discovered throughout East Asia, but what's most interesting about them is that they're just so dang hardy.

They can pretty much grow in any indoor environment, provided you give them a few things that they do

like and they do prefer. So first light. They do not like direct sun. As you might

imagine if they're growing on the forest floor, they are used to

semi-shade or bright light, but they don't do too well if you put them in direct sun for 8 plus hours a day.

When it comes to water, you want to keep the soil moist but you want to make sure that it drains well and when it comes

wintertime you just need to water less often. Temperature wise it just doesn't want to water less often. Temperature-wise, it just doesn't prefer extreme cold.

Anywhere from 60 to 80 degrees Fahrenheit,

and it's perfectly happy, and you'll notice that's a 20 degree range there,

so it's pretty tolerant to most

different temperatures. Soil as with most houseplants a well-draining potting

mix is perfectly fine and then when it comes to fertilization, very standard, you take a standard

house plant fertilizer, dilute it to about half strength, and then just fertilize it about once

a month or so. Now when it comes to repotting and

propagating this plant it's very easy to do. Asperistra plants propagate by

division so all you need to do is take do. Aspedistra plants propagate by division.

So all you need to do is take pieces of the rhizome

that have at least two leaves,

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