No, this isn’t going to be a regular thing – I don’t think. I just had a couple of photos to upload and needed an appropriate title, and the callback to last week just happened…
But, the backstory. My mom was always found of houseplants, even though her cats didn’t approve of keeping them in pristine condition, and one of her long-term succulents was a jade plant. Sometime after her death almost six years ago, my brother gave away the jade plant because someone wanted it and he knew he wasn’t as inclined to maintain it. A week after that, he moved a bit of furniture near the window and discovered a branch that had broken off of the plant when it had been moved. It still seemed viable, so he popped it in water and, many days later when it was sprouting roots, into its own pot.
This past summer when The Girlfriend and I were at his place in New York, we saw the sprawling and abundant plant that had grown from this single branch (so it appears he was better at its care than he suspected,) and he suggested we take a couple of cuttings home with us, since they’re that easy to cultivate and transplant. And they were; all three rooted immediately, and when transplanted into their own pots, simply exploded. And just a few days back, I noticed that they were starting to bloom. I would have done some photos last night, only I discovered that these were the type of flowers that close at night, so the session waited until this morning.
Only, as The Girlfriend repeatedly told me, this isn’t a jade plant, though it’s related; it’s a neverdie (Kalanchoe crenata,) with thinner but broader leaves. It took a plant ID app on the smutphone to pin this down. But it’s winter, and they’re flowering, so one of the three came down from an upstairs window for a short session, including some applications of the misting bottle.
Given our sporadic luck with plants, including countless seedlings that started and faltered, and several purchased plants that thrived for a couple of weeks after transplanting then simply died, these three have scoffed at their finicky and sensitive brethren, now threatening to get huge and make us look for a bigger house. Seriously, if you have bad luck with plants, get one of these – they’re like therapy.
We also received a small cactus for christmas from a neighbor, and while we were told that the red flower it sported was simply a fake for appearance, I had brought the cactus down for some ‘dew’ sessions as well, and it was this fake flower that produced the best images at extreme magnification.
Nothing exciting, but we’ll call it a month-beginning abstract, and thematic for this Monday.
There are more things in the works, including the standard retrospective jazz, but I’m moving slow right now so I opted to go with a little color for the winter, to start the year off. Even though I’m not fond of red, myself, and calling it by another name doesn’t change that.