Nature is Never Spent

I've always assumed the Christmas cactus was named after the time of year it blooms. I did a tiny bit of research today and confirmed this. I also learned that the plant is originally from mountain forests of Brazil, where it grows as an air plant. There is another cultivar that blooms in spring.



It's an exotic and strange thing to have blooming in winter here, but I've had mine for years now, and I think I'm getting used to it.

My mom has many wonderful and nurturing qualities, but she does not have a "green thumb," as they say. If houseplants manage to stay alive under her watch, it's probably due mostly to their hardiness. But she has had a Christmas cactus for more than a year, and it looks like it's actually starting to bud now: tiny pink buttons on the ends of a few of the leaves. It's really lovely in the morning when the sun comes in through the picture window.

A few days ago, while out on the balcony, I happened to glance over the rail into my own study window and saw one of my Christmas cactuses sneaking along the sill just inside. It had a few leaves up there, and on the end of one of them was a pink, lipstick-like blossom bud. This plant is so reliable, every year when the days get short and the weather finally cools, it starts blooming.


Please excuse the dirty window and sill!

Another reason I like it is the way you can see the sunlight through the leaves. There's a darker, think vein going up the middle, and then if you look closely, you can even see the tiny veins inside the succulent leaf.

I've never been much for houseplants; there were always so many wonderful ones outdoors, and I'm much more interested in wild plants and ones you can eat. However, a few years ago a friend gave me some aloe pups and some jade cuttings. I took them because she liked them so much, and I thought a challenge would be nice. And besides, I can never resist free or homeless plants, whether they come up volunteer in the garden, they're abandoned next to the dumpster (which is how I got the pot of mums I've had for several years) or they come in the mail in a ziplock bag.

That was five years ago.



I didn't think I'd become particularly fond of the aloes. They're so spiky and spidery and their appearance seems to say "don't touch me." I was used to leaves with veins and lobes. I didn't even know if I'd be able to keep a cactus type plant alive. But the aloe thrived and started having puppies. Holy cow. Pups everywhere.



And eventually, when the original plant reached a very mature size and its asexually produced children were threatening to take over my study and I'd already divided them two or three times, I realized... aloes are sexy.

I mean, from an aesthetic perspective. They're very male, all spiky and pointy as I mentioned, but at the same time they're female, plump and curvy. They also glow beautifully when there's sunlight behind them.



I was thinking about all this because it's past time to divide the aloes again, and one of them was so big it was literally pushing and pulling itself out of the pot. So I spent part of this afternoon re-potting, running out of soil, and finding out that the much larger pot I'd bought was still too small. And I need about six more pots. The aloes are taking over!