Grouping plants definitely helps, but honestly, pebble trays never did much for me. Maybe my house is just too dry or something? One thing I've found surprisingly effective is placing a small humidifier nearby—nothing fancy, just one of those cheap tabletop ones. Saved my peace lily from certain doom last winter. But yeah, totally agree on the trial and error part...plants seem to enjoy keeping us guessing.
"plants seem to enjoy keeping us guessing."
Haha, isn't that the truth? I've had a similar experience with pebble trays—tried them for months, and honestly, they just ended up being decorative dust collectors. But your humidifier tip is spot-on. Last winter, when we were renovating our living room, the air got super dry from all the sanding and painting. My poor fiddle leaf fig started dropping leaves like crazy. Out of desperation, I grabbed one of those cheap little humidifiers from the drugstore, set it up nearby, and within a week or two, the leaf drop slowed way down. It's funny how sometimes the simplest solutions are the ones that actually work. Glad your peace lily pulled through—plants can be surprisingly resilient once we figure out their quirks.
I've had mixed results with humidifiers myself. Tried one last year when refinishing some cabinets—definitely helped my monstera perk up, but my spider plant didn't seem to care either way. Maybe some plants are just pickier about humidity levels? Or maybe it's placement... who knows. Agreed on pebble trays though, total waste of time in my experience.
