@Plant_FathersEst. 2020

Field Guide/ZZ Plant

What went wrong

ZZ Plant

Zamioculcas zamiifolia

Survives neglect. Does not survive attention.

A ZZ plant stores water in potato-like rhizomes under the soil, which is why it can be ignored for two months and look unchanged. That same adaptation means it has no mechanism for shedding excess water, and a ZZ plant watered every couple of weeks in a dim room will rot invisibly from beneath while looking perfectly healthy above the soil.

The failure is almost always discovered late. By the time a ZZ plant looks unwell, the rhizomes have usually been decomposing for weeks.

Usually one of these

2 Likely Causes

Ranked by how often it is actually this.

  1. 01

    Rhizome rot

    Nearly all ZZ deaths
    What you saw
    Stems yellowing then flopping outward from the center. Rhizomes brown and soft rather than firm and pale when unpotted.
    What it means
    Unpot and inspect. Firm rhizomes can be cut clear of rot and repotted dry. Uniformly brown mush is terminal.
  2. 02

    Low light plus regular watering

    The classic combination
    What you saw
    No new growth for many months, gradual yellowing, soil staying wet for weeks.
    What it means
    The plant is not using the water, so the water sits and rots it. Neither factor alone would have done it.

The question you actually have

Dead or dormant?

ZZ plants can go many months without visible growth and be entirely healthy — do not read stillness as death. Tip the plant out and look at the rhizomes instead. Firm and pale means alive regardless of how bad the foliage looks. Individual leaflets can also be rooted, though it takes the better part of a year.

If it did not make it

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