Old House Plants

I know there are probably older houseplants out there, but here are two old houseplants of that belong to TS and I.

The Norfolk pine is 31 years old, the Mother-in-law tongues are probably 50 years old.

The Norfolk pine has aluminum foil around the base to keep the cat from using it as a litter box. I am hoping that her doing so last week will not kill it. Although it survived the attentions of a 12 year old gardener (me) a busy teen, and a young newlywed without dying. It has been regulated to the utility room for a few years, but since Magic ate a bunch of the dirt I decided to move it back into the utility room so the new puppy won't have that opportunity.

I took the MIL tongues from my mom's house before she moved. They were plants she'd had before I was born, divided many times I'm sure. I started out with one kind of sickly one. It had been on her bathroom sill, and was pretty starved for light. It didn't take long to flourish with a little light and water.

My husband had a cactus from when he was 5 years old - we had it for at least 20 years before it died at about 32 years old. I also had an old jade plant from his grandmother, but it died not long after I got it - the trunk was hollow. I think his grandfather may have over-watered it when his grandmother was ill.

I try to water just once a week during the summer, once every couple of weeks in the winter.

Repot as needed. I rarely fertilize. I don't have a green thumb as much as I just find out about what different plants like, and try to provide that for them, as much as possible.

I wonder how old houseplants can get?

Do people have houseplants that are hundreds of years old?

I haven't been able to find much information on the Internet about this. I am sure the age would vary from plant to plant. If I find out anything else about this, I will post it later.