Wednesday, 20 November 2024

GPE #9 : Ms Nations' Bought Her Spider Plant A Mansion

This stop on the Infomaniac Garden Photos Event tour is a reblog of An Occult Apperatus (from Steve. Because 'Steve' is almost as nice a name as 'Paul' was.), as instructed by the blog author herself,

M S  N A T I O N S
 
I live in an apartment, and I don't have a yard. What we do have is a tiny little back patio, and what I've been doing is growing a few nasturtiums in pots out there every Summer. 
 

This is where we hang out and talk shit.
 
 

I never get tired of nasturtiums. You just cannot beat this intricate flower form - and the hummingbirds adore them!
 
 

Look how nicely this little bush form is draping! 
 
 
This year The Biker presented me with a drilled-out plastic bucket he'd made and told me "Grow a vegetable dammit. You can do it." 
 
 So I took a white fingerling potato and set the eyes out. Lo and behold they grew. If the tree rats don't rob me I might actually have enough in there to make a potato salad. We shall see at the end of the month. 
 

Yeah, that's a rogue nasturtium growing in there with them. Yeah, they look ratty. It's late in the season and I've been culling the leaves as they turn yellow. These were big, fluffy, tall plants there for awhile, though.
 
 
 
WARNING: HONESTY 
 
 The loss of my garden was a huge blow. I feel it still. I couldn't even drive around the neighborhood that first summer, going past everyone's wonderful gardens in bloom, without crying. Lord how I wept. It was dumb. I also felt cursed too. Like I was the kiss of death or something. No it doesn't make any sense. But I did. 
 
Cursed or not, by the end of our first month in the apartment the windowsills were full of carrot tops, celery hearts and other things all rooted and growing in water glasses. I longed for a real houseplant, though; I mean, celery isn't ideal for that purpose, so I forced myself that first January to go to a good nursery and buy a ficus pothos*, figuring that I'd have to actively set a ficus pothos on fire to kill it. 
 
 Anyway, I began to lavish a ridiculous amount of care on the ficus pothos, and it has thanked me by continuing to be aggressively alive. 
 

(BTW that is a picture of my husband's great grandfather in a hot rod that he built.) 
 
 
Shortly thereafter I was at a garage sale and found a little spider plant that I made myself buy. Same rationale - I'd have to run over a spider plant to kill it, was my thought. Well...it didn't go quite that way. The thing immediately began trying to climb out of its pot and nothing I could do made it happy. This was a big dramatic thing to me at the time. After months of this, I finally took the last little crown, just a little button of green, and set it in an egg cup full of water. And look at this thing three years later! 
 

Variegated spider plant showing off it's pretty, silvery roots. This vase is sixteen inches high and made of lead crystal. Yes.
I bought my spider plant a mansion. 
 
And there we go.

☙❧

 
 Thank you for showing us your paysho and indoor mansion, Ms Nations!  Those green fingers & thumbs of yours just can't be kept down.
 Oh, and sorry about the colour of the typeface - the actual dark orange doesn't show up very well against my dark grey-black background, so I had to lighten it up a bit.

 The next garden in this year's Event is that of Savvy, and we'll visting it in a couple of days time, so do pop back then.

13 comments:

  1. I loved this first time around, and I love it now. As we in London sink into cold dankness, nasturtiums in full sun are just the tonic! As are the houseplants... Jx

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  2. I agree with Jon, you had me with the nasturtiums. I have got to try them next year maybe and find a nice spot. The spider plant is quite something with it's roots. Looks very modern and chic like that sweet cheeks.

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  3. Nasturtiums are always sunny!
    And I love that Spider Plant mansion - so clever.
    Sx

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  4. We all need gardens to grow in, and there must always be room enough... for all of us. Thanks for sharing yours! Kizzes

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  5. Those nasturtiums are gorgeous, sweetpea! The MITM is talking about the next attempt at container gardening, so I think I'll have share this with him! xoxo
    p.s. IDV thank you, thank you,for including my feeble attempts this past year! xoxo

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    1. I love container gardening. And it also adds a nice touch in certain spaces that are hard to grow in, or if you're an apartment dweller, if a small patio or balcony.

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  6. I had my trusty magnifying glass pressed to the screen, wondering about that photo. Then I saw the caption where you said it's your husband's great grandfather in a hot rod that he built. I'm nosey so thanks for that detail.

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    1. I keep a magnifying glass too, it's a proper sleuths one, no fish placed underneath it can lie about it's age! We're just nosy buggers. Did you see the apparition in the hot rod photograph? In the top right hand corner in the mount area, you can see a woman's head with bobbed hair, floating in mid air.

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    2. Took me some time, but I see her.

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    3. 'Tis the ghost of hot rods past.

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  7. I have a soft spot for nasturtiums so do the butterflies they like to lay their eggs under their leaves, fodder for caterpillars. I'll be tempted to keep a couple of gold fish in that vase, would make a very good talking point and the shit from the fish would feed the spider plant.

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  8. We had a big windstorm Tuesday night so I'm not surprised to see that Ms Nations likely hasn't had the chance to see or respond to this post. I just got power back Thursday afternoon and I'm one of the lucky ones.

    Ms Nation - You can take the girl outta the dirt but you can't take the dirt outta girl! I'm glad you're still grown stuff! The nasturtiums are pretty. I've never tried growing them, but I'm quite certain they're edible flowers, right?

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  9. Can't beat nasturtiums! And they're great in a salad. Flowers and leaves.

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