(Plant) Rules Were Made to be Broken

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I realize it’s difficult to see what you’re looking at here so bear with me. This is a container with 2 philodendron in it. If philodendron seem to be a theme lately, I think they’re my new favorite plant group.

They’re a very varied group, coming in climbing forms, traditional houseplant shaped forms and trailing forms. I counted before I started this post–I have 18 of them, if I don’t lose the plant at the front of this container.

The philodendron at the front of this container is ‘Silver Sword.’ You can’t tell that because from the moment I brought this poor plant into my house, it’s been dying.

So I finally decided that I should see if it needed something other than it was getting (bright indirect light and unfortunately cold temperatures). And there’s the problem, I think. Most of what I read said that the plant should get no colder than 60 degrees. In this room, in this winter, it will drop into the upper 50s.

So here’s where I need to break my cardinal rule–because I don’t think I can move this giant container. Maybe I should try that first, because I really hate to transplant anything in the dead of winter.

But if that fails, I am going to have to pull this plant out of here. I don’t think either of us will be happy about that!

A Philodendron Surprise

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I brought this philodendron ‘Ring of Fire’ as one of my demonstration plants last week to my house plant lecture.

It was very popular but it didn’t travel well. On both trips, the container fell over. I am sure you can see why with these big, top-heavy leaves. I have a special box for my taller plants, but it didn’t matter. It was unhappy even in there.

What I didn’t notice as I was moving it around, or even packing it up for travel, was the flower bud on it. You can see it just about the leaf with the most yellow. It sort of resembles a big pink thumb.

If all goes well, it will open to a rather unimpressive typical spadix type flower–similar to a closed up peace lily flower.

But I thought it was very interesting that even here in Frozen North–and this year it’s pretty darn Frozen!–this plant wants to bloom.

Larks, Bears, Owls and New Year’s

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From the time I was a small child–and I mean very young, probably six or seven–my parents remember me getting up very early–like at 5 am. This would be true not only on school days, but on weekend days as well, and true in summer (perhaps more so then) and in winter.

They used to tell me that I was born to be a farmer–and while I knew that probably wasn’t right–I just knew that I loved being up early, before everyone else was awake.

Even when I was very young, I didn’t wake anyone else up–I just read books. It’s pretty much the same things I do now. I get up about 3 hours before I leave for work–between 4:30 and 5 am. I have breakfast, read and pray, and have time to take the dog out before work. It’s a relaxing way to ease into the day.

This puts me into a special category of people known as “larks” who enjoy getting up very early.

Most people are “bears,” who rise between 6:30 and 7 am (when left to their own devices and well-rested) and the remaining few–on the other end of the spectrum–are the “owls,” who enjoy getting up much later. The Spoiler is one of the Owls. One day this past weekend he slept in until 1 pm! He’s just a perpetual teenager, I guess.

The point of this whole thing is that making any New Year’s resolutions to try to change your type is pretty much futile and not healthy. If I decided that I were going to try to stay up very late and to sleep until noon on the weekends, not only would it be difficult–if not impossible–for me, but the quality of my sleep would suffer and so would the quality of many other things, as happens when you’re sleep deprived.

So go ahead and make resolutions if you’d like–just don’t try to mess with your sleep!

As for me, being a lark really helps with gardening too. I may not be a farmer–but once gardening season rolls around, I can get out and enjoy my garden, or do my chores, before the heat and humidity really get bad. So it all works out–and I get to see some awesome sunrises too!

Another Plant in Need of Renovation

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This lovely Rex begonia (please ignore the kitchen stuff behind it–that’s where I was pruning it) was begun from a tiny piece gifted to me by a shoreline garden club after one of my presentations.

I was pulling plants today for my houseplant lecture on Tuesday and suddenly this plant became much more prominent. So as I looked at it, I discovered that it had all sorts of dead and dying leaves that needed to come out.

With that done, I looked more closely at the plant and realized that it too–like Friday’s plant–needed a little more in the way of TLC. But I never make drastic pruning or re-potting moves in the winter here in the Frozen North unless there’s a “plant emergency ” (like I drop a container and break it).

There should be time for renovation in the spring. But at this rate, I had better start keeping a list!

An Unusual Orchid

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The Spoiler thinks that all orchids are ugly. But you would be forgiven for thinking that this orchid is a bit ugly too!

This is ludisia discolor, a terrestrial orchid. What does that mean? Well, as you know, most orchids live, in their native environments, sort of hanging off tree bark, or in pockets of moss or decaying leaves in the trees. That’s why their roots are so prominent and why they hate to be buried in soil.

This orchid lives on the forest floor in southeast Asia–hence the name “terrestrial.” Therefore, it can live in soil (although it would probably prefer to be in something a little better draining than the potting soil I have it in–still, it’s been doing just fine there for several years. I think this is my caution to not do as I am doing and hope that it works for you too!)

It also would prefer to be warmer than I have it, coming from southeast Asia–in fact, that’s probably why it’s a bit scrawnier than I would like. But it’s also not in idea conditions.

No, I don’t grow it where you see it. It’s in the warmest room of my home (which isn’t saying much) but it’s draping down between a computer table and a bookshelf, so it’s getting almost no light–hence the scrawniness.

Where it does get some light–this part is reaching over toward my Aerogarden–you can see the lovely color in the leaves. This is really why I grow this plant. The leaves are simply magnificent!

Once spring comes, I will cut back all the droopy parts and root the good parts–but I wouldn’t dream of doing that in the dead cold of winter here. This is merely a plant in need of a bit of rejuvenation. I’ll post its newly renovated self in the spring!

New Year, New Gardening Resolutions

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Good gracious, we’re only 6 days into the new year, and yet I find myself sort of at sea about what to think about the garden in 2026.

Each of my last few gardening seasons has found me able to do less than I wanted to for some reason or other–I won’t bore you with details.

But I still haven’t yet seen a neurosurgeon for the aneurysms that were diagnosed last November. Without re-hashing that sad saga, we’ll just say it’s a failure of corporate medicine to care about what happens to people. I hope to be able to remedy this next month.

But all of that aside, I still do have aneurysms. Next week I need to lecture–and carry plants, albeit very carefully–with them. In February, same result. I am anticipating small plants in lots of boxes.

Granted, I may have had these aneurysms for years. And nothing may happen. And when I finally do see a doctor, the treatment may be “watchful waiting.”

Nevertheless, the advice I have been given is “don’t carry anything heavier than 10 pounds.” That’s fairly antithetical to gardening–or the type of gardening I do, or that I suspect most of us do. It means that I can’t even lift a good portion of my house plants, never mind carry them outside for their summer sojourn.

Now, certainly, there are worse things in life than a lifting restriction. But the idea that I may have to pretty much just abandon gardening–or get someone to help while I point at things–is very unsatisfying to me.

Of course, if the alternative is causing a stroke, I guess I will learn to live with it.

How Many Lemons?

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This post is sort of a variation of the “when life gives you lemons…” post I did last year.

Last year, I had a whole bowl full of lemons at Christmastime. This year, I didn’t think I would have any such thing. In fact, when I brought this plant in for the winter, I wasn’t sure that there were any lemons on it–but then I thought that I eventually saw two.

Just recently, as the lemons started to ripen, I realized that there were in fact 5 lemons on the plant! Wow! That’s quite a difference from 2! (You’re not seeing 5 because we have harvested 2–there are 3 left on the plant).

You’re probably wondering how I could be so stupid or could make such a mistake.

Well, here’s the thing. The plant, particularly when I first bring it in, is covered in lush, variegated leaves. That doesn’t exactly make seeing the fruit as simple as it might be on a plant with simple green leaves. (Remember, the fruit on this plant is also variegated.) So, variegated fruit among variegated leaves–it’s a bit of a challenge.

It’s only when the fruit starts to ripen and take on a slightly blush color–so something that’s not yellow and green like the plant–that I began to notice that, oh my, there were more lemons than I thought. What a bonus!

So now I will have a few nice lemons for some fish this winter. That’s going to be very welcome!

The Frozen North is Living Up to Its Name

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Friday night into Saturday morning we had some snow. It wasn’t a huge storm for us–I would say it was about 6″ or so–but others were saying it was 8 or more (and I am not saying others who are too far from me–this is my plow guy who lives the next street over!)

In any event, it’s a bit more snow than we’ve had in awhile and we were lucky that it fell on the weekend so that it could be cleaned up while most people were home. You can “guess-timate” for yourself how much it might be by looking at the little hats it has formed on my bird feeder and bird bath.

Here’s a slightly different view of the same general area–the hydrangeas just outside my back door. You can see that the deer came prancing right through here.

And here’s a view out the front porch door after we cleared the walk. You can see the driveway–which was plowed, but not terribly well–in front of the tall evergreens. I was delayed several hours on Monday by the icy rain falling into the remaining snow.

It’s turning out to be a tough a winter already. I am not looking forward to the rest of it!!

The Little Plant that Could

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I planted this container back in early September for a container lecture I was giving. Even when I was buying the plants, the ornamental pepper was the star–people were stopping me at the garden center and asking about it.

if you had told me then that the plant would still be alive–particularly with all our bitter cold–I never would have believed you. But pictures don’t lie. I took this on Sunday.

Now obviously I am not keeping the plant outside but it is on my unheated sun porch. So far the lowest temperature out there–with all cold–has been 29 degrees Fahrenheit. So that should have been cold enough to make this plant really unhappy.

But clearly it did not.

The other 2 plants in the container are heuchera. You can see the chartreuse one. There’s also a dark purple one. They are obviously fine and frost hardy in containers.

So we shall see what happens to this pepper. My porch has never gotten colder than 27 degrees. At that point, I usually bring the tender vegetation in for a few days if it looks like a really prolonged cold. Sometimes, then, they stay in so long they’re in for the rest of the winter. It’s a delicate balancing act.

But even if this pepper succumbs, I have enjoyed it longer than I expected to. It’s definitely been an unexpected bonus.

We Don’t Need Squirrels This Year to Predict the Cold!

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Several years ago, I always used to post a photo in early November–just around the time that the trees dropped their leaves–of a squirrels’ nest in the trees.

For the uninitiated, the location of the squirrel’s nest in the tree is supposed to predict how cold the winter is supposed to be. If it’s lower to the ground, it’s supposed to be a warmer winter. If it’s higher up, it’s supposed to be a cold winter.

So I did this for several years. And early on, the squirrels seemed to know what they were doing. Then I had a couple of years where the squirrels had nests at every conceivable height maybe I just had a habitat that was just too appealing to squirrels at that point–hard to say)–but that’s when I gave up posting about squirrels predicting the weather!!

In any event, I certainly didn’t need squirrels to tell me that it was going to be cold this year. Every month since August has been below normal for us by 1-2 degrees. Now, you may not think that sounds cold, but keep in mind we’re trying to keep the planet from warming up–as a whole–but just that amount.

On Monday, we were 10 degrees below normal–for a January day. That’s just ridiculously cold by any standard! I said to someone that I am already wearing my warmest coat–I am not sure what I am going to do in January and February. I guess I will have to add more layers under it. I already feel like the Michelin man.

But, we can’t change the weather, we can only talk about it. I wonder what the squirrels think?