F I R S T N A T I O N S
Less a couple of plants, this is what my 'garden' looks like these days - all indoors. I like the cascading type as you can see.
If you look closely you might see a couple of spots of color dotted around that don't seem very planty...
...and those are little weights I made to train the vines to grow downward and not twist. I saw this done with little brass bells once years ago, which works well but is jingly. These random, big beads I had, strung on a little wire, are just the thing.
They're light enough to encourage rather than force the brittle stems, they provide a little modest twinkle, and prove that I am the kind of lunatic that does shit like make jewelry* for their houseplants.
☙❧
Ms Nations, your vertical indoor garden of spiderplants and bejewelled pothos (and whatever that crinkly-leaved plant is on the lower shelf) is delightful! Do you turn the plants so they grow evenly rather than leaning towards the window?
* I used the British spelling for the title as it wasn't a verbatim quote (so it didn't look weird to my British eyes), but left your original American spelling in the body of the post.
What a clever trick! I like the idea of jewelry for the houseplants. I have cacti and succulents under a grow light and that seems to be the best I can do to keep plants alive inside. I'm tempted to try a spider plant though. My mom had a brown thumb, but somehow she was able to keep a spider plant alive.
ReplyDeleteAll spider plants seem to want is good drainage and an occasional Negroni.
DeleteWhat a nice view of The Hanging Gardens of Idaho !
ReplyDeleteEh - what ? You make yer plants work out ?! Yoh lift, bro ?
My Gänseblümchen is a ten-pounder !?
Ah, the Toklas druggie book - I remember well when you gave the recipe for a nice witches brew, all homegrown, I miss yer old garden (and no, I will not mention the thing).
Good. That will remain our special secret, then. XOO
DeleteOh, I like the plant jewellery! How clever! Though judging by some of my indoor plants I might be better placed to stick to making jewellery.
ReplyDeleteSx
I would like to see it if you did!
DeleteI learned something today. I have never seen anal beads used as plant weights.
ReplyDeleteAll lovely for indoor plants. I have no luck with indoor plants at all. Jokes aside, I did not know about the weights for viney plants to make them grow downward. Not to mention adds color. That Nations is a smart cookie.
The rough part was listening to the perilla beg.
DeleteJewellery for plants, what a brilliant idea, how about piercings for plants, I have a dangling cacti that is crying out for a Prince Albert.
ReplyDeleteHa!
DeleteI've got something for your prickly dangler.
DeleteI've got my eye on that Alice B. Toklas cookbook.
ReplyDeleteMy baby, if you would come back, I would send it to you free of charge.XOO
DeleteXOO back atcha, hon.
DeleteA little bit of sparkle makes everything look better! It's a great display, Ms Nations... Jx
ReplyDeletePS Are those really spider-plants? They're usually variegated, in my experience. [NB our collection of said Chlorophytum comosum never comes indoors; it's tougher than it looks...]
Ms Nations did not identify them, Jon, but if one views the first photo at actual size, the spidery plant on the middle shelf has produced a telling inflorescence with a tiny plantlet at the tip.
Delete(Also, I used to have a totally green one like these. The ones I have now - both indoors & out - are Chlorophytum comosum 'Variegatum' which has dark green leaves with white margins. Whereas yours, I believe, are C. comosum 'Vittatum' with mid-green leaves and a central white stripe?)
I bought the original "mother plant" of our spider-plant collection for 50p on the "dead-or-almost-dead" shelf at Homebase [a place that seemed to specialise in total neglect of its plants; so the shelf was always full] more than a decade ago. It's variety name [if ever we knew it] is lost to the mists of time... Jx
DeleteIt's a viridia. I always seem to find them, and they always try to blossom themselves to death. If you keep on them and take off every sign of a floiwer bud you see, then you start getting the nice cascades of spiderlings - no anal beads required!
DeleteI've not heard of a spider plant with that name, but as it just means "green", I get it. As for flowering, ours do, every year, without any harm - indeed, we have even found seedlings from where the bees or hoverflies have done their job and the seeds have dropped into neighbouring pots! Jx
DeleteIt never ceases to blow me away how different varieties of the same plant respond. I've seen lovely cascades of white blossoms spilling down from a variegata that must have been thirty years old, just this huge cascading thing - and the blossoms had the faintest, sweet scent! XOO
DeleteAt first I thought that you had been very careless with your earrings but no you have been very clever.
ReplyDeleteLovely to see an indoor garden and I think your plant shelf by the big window is genius.
My Fave is the Alice B. Toklas but there is a nicely bound 2 volume set and another that I can't make out as your earring is in the way.
The first thing I ever grew was a Spider Plant. We love them and have had several outside in all weathers for many years. They are indestructible.
PS
I am working on posting a selection of my cookery books and hope to have it ready soon.
Ttfn