Oh my gosh, it’s already the seventh eighth day (I did try to gt this post up yesterday) of Plantness and I’ve only officially celebrated the first four!  We had an excellent start to the holiday with last Saturday’s gathering and indoor plant crawl, but even with all the greenhouse visits this gardener only purchased four new goodies.  Others have done much better!  In our local group Kimberley is probably the star, with enough new plants and plant goodies that I suspect she could already round out the holiday, but overseas, Cathy of Words and Herbs is running at the Olympic level!  She’s been able to find new additions for each day of Plantness and I’m absolutely loving her enthusiasm during these chilly days and frigid nights.  Her embracing of the holiday is exactly the kind of attitude which will inspire us today for our second indoor plant crawl.  “Do it for Cathy” shall be our mantra anytime we’re on the fence about something which might get too big, or might not like our care, or might be something uncomfortably new to us and outside the comfort zone.  Heh heh, I shall of course update on how it goes 😉

Our table setting for our Plantness Eve celebrations last week.  Two new plants which came home with us last year, two flowering goodies from under the plant lights, and four new treats purchased that day!

So in spite of zero success at every grocery store, box store, and DIY stop which I made during the week, here are the four new things which followed me home the weekend prior.  I’d offer up photos but its been dark, or nearly so, every time I pull into the drive after work, and my camera skills don’t do flash very well, so I’ll offer a written summary and hope for a little more natural light this weekend.

I find myself finally getting sucked back into the houseplant world, and by that I mean the tropical foliage trend, so the first plant is a Syngonium podophyllum ‘Albo variegata’ (variegated arrowleaf vine).  The leaf was just too cool to resist, but we will see how I handle something which wants to crawl and climb…  Secondly is a miniscule foxtail fern (Asparagus densiflorus ‘Meyerii’) which although nearly an un-killable plant, I killed mine off, so maybe this one I shall remember to water (and also take inside for the winter).  Third is a plant which is much bigger than I normally buy, a nearly gallon sized sanseviera ‘sayuri’… very cool imo… and the fourth and final is a pink variegated strawberry begonia (Saxifraga stolonifera ‘Tricolor’).  I saw one about a year ago and ever since then…

Oh my gosh I’m so excited about the new goodies but maybe that’s partially due to the fact I’ve gone and returned from this season’s biggest Plantness trip which involved a 1.5 hour drive down towards Philly.  I was relatively good but others maybe not so much, especially since “do it for Cathy’ came up much more frequently than I ought to admit, but based on the amount of fun we had I should have been driving a busload of people down instead of just the four of us!

So I hope everyone is enjoying the tail end of Plantness, and two things before I go look at my new plants again and then consider a pre-snowstorm trip to the last two local places… even though I do already have a plant item for each day 🙂  First:  If you dabble in houseplants you have probably heard of the Philodendron ‘Thai Constellation’, and you’ve probably heard of snake plants (Sanseviera).  The name Barry Yinger is a name you should know as well since he is probably the horticulturalist who first brought the poster child of houselants ‘Thai Constellation’ to the Americas and who is now leading Sanseviera conservation efforts in East Africa.  Check out >this link< if you’re curious.  Secondly:  I don’t remember what my second thing was going to be but this weekend I decided that houseplants are dangerous since anything in the world of plants is an option, and now tissue culture and two day delivery can bring them all close to your doorstep.

Two more weeks and it’s already February!  Hmmmm, I won’t even mention the little white flowers that could possibly bring 😉