Y’all. You send a girl some good ideas for posts. I may just have to commission some other alphabet ideas from you. I got a few great ideas for G, but I’m going with greenery, for now. Another G-post may follow, because there were some good ones!!!
You may have noticed from my “H” post that I have a lot of plants. As someone who previously had a black thumb*, I love my plants. A lot. I’m devastated when one suffers a setback (or a death), and I take pride in each new shoot and leaf.
My peace lily. My Grandmom and Granddad gave me my first peace lily in college. It thrived, up until the day that I left it with my then-boyfriend for the summer, and a dog visited his house and dug the entire thing up. When I arrived back to school in September, my beautiful lily was toast. A few years later, I replaced it with this one, and it has been a mainstay in my botanical life since. Pierre, my elder (and snarkier) cat likes to bite the tips off the leaves and spit them on the floor. Thus, this plant is not elegant. I don’t care. I still adore it.
This guy. I have no idea what he is. I bought him a long time ago, because I loved this pot, and I wanted a pretty plant to put inside it. He cost me about $2, and I really like him for his viney branches and stiff leaves. He’s one of my favorites.
My sweet, mercurial African violet. I keep her at my office, and she plagues me. I seem to leave her in continually worse shape. This is perplexing, because this window is where every “indirect light” plant thrives. Dammit.
Another dude that I bought, despite having no idea what he is. (Ed: Thanks to Stevie, I now know that he is an umbrella tree, or schefflera!) He lives right at the top of our stairs, and explodes with growth every now and again. I probably need to repot him. I love his graceful handprint leaves, and the tender shoots that he produces here and there. The tiny, bright green tendrils beg me for attention.
This little cactus, from my friend Diana’s apartment. When Diana moved, I inherited a few of her plants. This cactus is so hearty and wholesome. I forget about it most of the time, and occasionally remember that it might want a drink of water. Somehow, it continues to survive my neglect. I always breathe a sigh of relief when I discover that it still lives.
My mother-in-law tongue. Oh, how I love her. She’s so aggressive, so dramatic, so spiney and weird. My mom has a gorgeous, seven-ish-foot-tall mother-in-law tongue, that has been around since my childhood. One day, my pretty. One day.
I made this tiny terrarium a while ago. Two of the plants have died, and I haven’t yet replaced them. I love how juicy this front succulent looks. And I really like the spindly center plant.
And, speaking of spindly, here is Spindly Joe. I got him from Diana in the same aforementioned move, and he amuses me. His creeping arms reach longer and longer, until one day, in a seeming act of martyrdom, they break off, revealing an unnoticed slim stalk behind. I recently learned that I could re-root these broken bits, and I lamented my lack of attention to the earlier castoffs.
The Horse Whisperer’s garden. I built this a few months ago, in an effort to give my honey a little green space to call his own. He has lettuce, tomatoes, thyme, rosemary, sage, and some fun flowery thing that I once owned in Texas, a decade (!!!!) ago. So far, so good.
Here’s a random succulent that I’ve had for several years. It lives in our bathroom, and is sometimes forgotten. When I got it, it had these amazing tight buds, which have gotten very leggy and woody recently. I moved it to an area that gets less light, thinking perhaps I was overdoing it. It seems to have helped.
Finally, my maidenhair fern. This lovely lady scorns my attention, and endlessly hovers near death. Sigh.
*I may have told you this story, but I once had an entire conversation with someone about my black thumb, and my tendency to kill everything I touched. As our conversation progressed, he looked increasingly afraid/impressed. Later, he confessed to me that he thought I had said black belt. Um. No. But that would have been way better.
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