Do you have a low light area that needs some foliage? Get a zz plant.
Do you often forget to water your plants? Get a zz plant.
Do you want something that will forgive you no matter how many times you insult it? Get a zz plant.
Seriously, these guys just want to exist near you as long as you’re happy with its presence. They’re like a dogs that just want a friend.
They’re one of the easiest plants to keep because of their such easy care. They have low light needs so they can fill out a corner, so as long as it gets a little bit of light, it’ll be okay. As you can see I have mine on the corner of my office desk, and where it sits is about 30 feet away from any window. This one lives off fluorescent light and gives me about a dozen shoots per growing season.
Something unique to the Raven ZZ plant is that new foliage pops up a bright lime green, and as those leaves age, it turns out to be such a dark pigment that they are almost black. I’m such a sucker for dark colored plants so this one was a no brainer to get! The raven cultivar is exclusive to Costa farms’ “trending tropicals” line so they are sold at box stores almost always.
Zz plants are also a little funky in that their root system is composed of rhimozones. They look like giant bulbous growths under the soil that look slightly like a tumor. Their only real purpose is to store water; so with that said, zz plants do not require a lot of water at all! In fact, I treat mine just like it is a succulent or cactus. I just water it every month or so and have not heard any complaints from it yet. Likewise, since they do not need much water, they will be susceptible to rot if you tend to overwater plants. For that reason I like to add drainage to my soil mix, I have mine in a 1/3 mix ratio of perlite and most standard potting soil mix.
The other cool thing about propagating is that these guys can be propagated from almost any part of the plant. I stuck a few leaves in soil, a couple cut in half and a couple still whole (I had a whole stem get snapped off. Sad day) and they eventually all grew a rhimozone and now all have new leaves popping up! Only thing is…it took about 8 months to get there. Theyre such slow growers when they’re young!
Anyway, I love my zz plant, even though 99% of the time I forget it exists. And they’re just fine with that :)
Thanks for the write up, cool plant. So they’re just called ZZ plants at the box store? What does Raven ZZ mean, from your title?
ZZ plant stands for their full name, zamioculcas zamiifolia. They’re almost always labeled as a ZZ. The raven ZZ is this particular cultivar, which has black foliage. A standard ZZ plant is still green and their leaves do not age to black.
Awesome, thanks so much! I think I’ll be making a new plant friend.