The string of things file

• The honest review
• The identity parade: pearls/bananas/dolphins are Curio, hearts is a Ceropegia, turtles is a peperomia
• The light hunger
• Watering by pearl-feel: the five-state squeeze vocabulary (plus the hearts and turtles dialects)
• The bald top and the wig trick
• The tour: six strings honestly scored, with per-plant ASPCA cat verdicts
• The shallow pot logic, the take-down watering ritual, and the backup jar (propagation as insurance)

I'm not a botanist, and I don't have 150 plants — I keep a windowsill's worth, and I've killed a few learning how (a Calathea in eleven days is how this whole thing started). When something goes wrong I go down the rabbit hole: the studies, the extension-horticulture pages, the 2am forum threads, and every horror story plant people send in on @leafjournal on TikTok. These guides are that mix — hands-on experience checked against the research, cleaned up and told straight. No lab, no sponsorships, no “trust me.” Just what actually keeps a plant alive, so yours isn't the one that learns it the hard way.