It’s the gardener’s February fix; the tightly amassed collection of tropicals, stretching towards the sliding glass patio door languidly, stubborn green hues soaking up late winter’s toneless light.
The palm bows out slightly at the back corner of the laminate table, dual thin dry trunks crooning over the edge as their ancestors must have on the sandbars of some island. Narrow ribbon-like spears radiate symmetrically from the scaly trunks halfway up, chartreuse ribbed in hot pink. Old, woody roots peek out of the potting soil, giving some sense of time, grip, and erosion. The pot is a bit too small, disproportionate to the palm’s crown; its cream colored, stucco texture smudges when wet, and it’s lip is scalloped, painted a glossy cocoa brown.
A rescued zygote (aka Christmas cactus) cascades out of a tiny blue ceramic pot in the dappled shadow of the palm. Scooped up from the grocery store bargain bin in early January 2011, she bloomed once before Thanksgiving and has buds again now, a week before Valentine’s Day, caring not for our calendar. Strange fuchsia, tubular flowers peel back and flake like pastry dough, ending in golden pollen tips. Gorgeousness cost $0.99, and is much more sensually appealing than poinsettia tea-towels.
Ah, on to the Amaryllis bulbs, the drama queens of the kitchen table. Five separate pots, five separate habits. The first flower stalk came from the largest bulb which filled out it’s ten-inch terracotta pot; it shot up taller than the palm before opening huge pelican beaks of floriferousness, sparkling white like five-petaled snowflakes, a neat square of four flowers back to back, each a good eight inches in diameter. It was an arresting sight each time you might enter to get a can of diet coke or crack open a can of cat food.
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