One could take the winter off….well no. Anyway, houseplants in this house face some rather serious obstacles. Most of the house is actually quite dark, a majority of the rooms can easily sink to 55 at night in the winter*, and the major issue that pretty much all the furniture Must Not get water on it. Obstacles. Nonetheless, to the running bemusement, if not horror of the other inhabitants, the houseplants are conquering territory. They started in the kitchen, a warm, sunny nook, with one elderly and happy Christmas cactus in an upstairs room since sometime back in the 1960’s. They now have a commanding advantage in: the kitchen, the dining room, the basement (three spots), and three rooms upstairs. And horrors, just invaded the library.
Here are two invaders of the library. I like Christmas cactus, I can’t kill them, they like temperatures in the low 60’s down into the 50’s, the bloom every single year without fuss, they don’t need pruning, and so forth. Of course, the don’t want to bloom at Christmas, but hey.
A yellow one:
And a pink one
*The record is 38, but that was set with a loose storm window in that room; the usual winter low is 47. Heavens knows what it was before the storm windows.
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Acair Fearann 