Ubiquitous computing is finally becoming a reality. However, there are many practical issues that stand in the way of mass acceptance. We have been investigating these practical concerns within the context of an autonomous application that takes care of houseplants using a sensor network and a mobile robot. We believe that emphasizing autonomy and thereby minimizing demands on users will help us address the many practical concerns that will arise not only in PlantCare but also in many other ubiquitous applications. In this paper, we discuss the technical challenges that we have encountered while trying to make PlantCare a reality and report on our experience in addressing these challenges.