Wednesday, June 06, 2007

The Path of Excess

The only word to describe the current state of Pretty Lady's fire escape is 'riotous.'

Things have not even gotten started blooming yet, aside from a couple of morning glories and the miniature rose, purchased yesterday to fill the spot where the peony got scorched.

And yet Pretty Lady can...not...stop going to nurseries, garden stores, and the Botanical Garden. She is re-potting the indoor plants as well.

BTW, for those of you who have been following the story of the Epiphyllum with bated breath, Pretty Lady has some sad news for you. This weekend she had supper at an Ecuadoran restaurant which had an Epiphyllum in the window. It was potted in a tiny pot, with soil which resembled crumbled asphalt. It was obviously watered only rarely. It was tall, bony, preternaturally thin, and wan-looking. It also sported an incipient Blossom.

If this is how badly a person has to treat one's Epiphyllum in order to get it to bloom, then, Pretty Lady very much fears that she will prove to be Incapable.

3 comments:

BoysMom said...

Ah, yes, the addiction of plants.
I wonder why it is that some people seem to be immune?
It's very bad for the budget, isn't it?
I just added a geranium, six coleus, some herbs and peppers and tomatos to the collection.
Oh, and my giant 7 foot tomato, my Pruden's Purple, which I have been coddling for some fifteen months now, has an almost ripe tomato on it, and a bunch (well, maybe seven) of green tomatos!

Anonymous said...

It was potted in a tiny pot, with soil which resembled crumbled asphalt. It was obviously watered only rarely. It was tall, bony, preternaturally thin, and wan-looking. It also sported an incipient Blossom. If this is how badly a person has to treat one's Epiphyllum in order to get it to bloom, then, Pretty Lady very much fears that she will prove to be Incapable.

These little beasties are jungle cacti - so they grow in trees and eat from the air or from gunk accumulated in whatever treecrotch they've rooted in.

So just think like a cacti that lives in a tree in the jungle: you want a little collection of soilish type things (pumice, a bit of potting soil and some peat for water retention), in a pot that drains quickly (it's up in a tree right?). It's a happy little plant if it gets rained on once or at most twice a week, since up in a tree, only heavy rains get down to where it is, but it gets that regularly. It likes being up in a tree where it doesn't get eaten wild pigs and the like, so it's used to nice strong central amaerican sunshine for part of the day, and the rest of the day some mottled shade will do just fine.

You've got a fairly ideal location for it, from the sound of it, if you can resist the temptation to abuse it by drowning.

m, know whence he speaks because he's done that before

Anonymous said...

My gardening consists of an herb garden in a little courtyard area out front. I don't enjoy the whole "working the soil" thing, but I do like having fresh herbs to cook with, and since herbs are basically good-tasting weeds, they don't need much tending.

Unfortunately the rosemary keeps getting killed off every 2-3 years when we get a severe (for us) cold snap. Where's global warming when you need it?

Papapete