A View From My Garden

A view from my garden

Even the indoor garden rests during the dark days of January. I have a lot of house plants, for I am by nature a rescuer, and while this may not always be a desirable trait when dealing with friends and loved ones, there seems to be little harm in rescuing plants. I seldom actually go looking for a plant for the house; they seem to come to me.

I have a tiny Haworthia fasciata, called zebra haworthia which came to me as a gift in a 6-inch shallow bowl that had been planted with a small variety of jade plant, a tiny star cactus and this minuscule haworthia. I kept them in their dish for about a year. When they began to crowd each other out, I repotted them, giving each a pot of its own.

The star cactus, (Astrophytum sp.) enjoyed the half-light of the side porch in summer. It bloomed once or twice; inconspicuous pale yellow blooms. It also attracted a domestic spider which spun webs around and around it, from thorn to thorn. Those thorns were sharp, but to the little spider, I suppose they looked as big and rough as tree twigs. In the end, the star cactus succumed overnight, perhaps to a steep rise in humidity, coupled with an ill-considered watering. So now, there are only the haworthia and the small jade, which is a limber, drooping variety. The jade has an asymmetrical growth pattern that I like very much.

The common names for Haworthia range from pearl plant to wart plant, and do a fine job of illustrating why a botanical family or generic name is a good idea. There are some excellent field-guide type books on house plants. The one I use I have had for years. It is called Indoor Gardening , edited by Anne M. Halpin. It is an encylopedia type and came from Rodale Press, of Organic Gardening, the magazine, fame. Things have changed over the years since Robert Rodale passed on, and I do not know if this book is still available. I hope so, for it is excellent; I have never failed while following its information.

I have a large old common jade plant (Crassula argentea). It spreads and must be pruned now and then, which gives me its children to do something else with. The Crassulae are a large genus of more than
300 species, and all of the ones I have had have been very worth growing. I had one called a tube jade, which I have never been able to find again, and from which, the last time we moved cross country, I neglected to get a cutting. The leaves were much like those of C. argentea, and the form of the plant was the same, except each leaf was rolled up on its length, like a tube.

I also love asparagus, both on my plate and in the house plant collection. I have two, Aspaerigus. sprengeri and A. densiflorus. They do not get as much light as they would like at the window where they hang, for the Norway maple just outside, offers a lot of shade. I would move them to the greenhouse or to the living room, except I like them at that bedroom window where they form a sort of vegitable curtain. They do all right, but they are constantly sending out very long, and in the case of the A. densiflorus, thorn-covered stems; explorers looking not for the Pacific ocean, but only for a better source of light. Perhaps, if it were up to them, they would have me cut the maple down.

I once knew a couple who lived on an east-facing cliff in an A-frame cabin. In the middle of the living room, which looked out over the canyon through a two-story glass wall, they had hung an A. sprengeri. They had it in a large pot and hanger arrangement, with a rope and pully so they could lower it for watering. The plant was a fully 4 feet in diameter and trailed fronds over half way down from that 20-foot ridge. It was the most beautiful house plant I have ever seen. It was even in bloom for about nine months out of the year. Now that is what my asparagus ferns want!