At Home: House of Jades & Other Plants
Meet Loraine's houseplant menagerie, including Mama Charley and her babies.
By Loraine Page
COLUMNIST
It’s plant time! House plant time, specifically.
But isn’t it always?
I mean, houseplants stay put—with the exception of maybe the Venus flytrap, which moves “faster than the blink of a human eye,” according to a blog called Tom’s Carnivores.
Studies conducted on whether houseplants move or not found they do move, only they move too slowly for you to notice.
Time-lapse photography might help catch them in the act, but who has the time?
A camera lens directed at me, however, as I sit at my computer, could easily capture my movements. I have to get up countless times during the day to move my plants around, and not because they need the exercise.
What they need is the sun.
In cramped living quarters—a house built in the 1920s—only bits of sunlight come through various windows at various times of day. The camera, if trained on me, would pick up a woman attempting to follow the sun while hugging armfuls of potted plants and pushing a dolly from room to room.
In the evenings, barefoot and wearing a nightgown, the woman could be seen returning all said plants back to home base, where they would await the next day’s travels.
Dark, dismal days would delight the woman, though probably not her plants, especially when the meteorologists promise, “Not a bit of sun today. Not for anyone, and not anywhere.”
But lest I mislead, not all my plants require direct sunlight. Some can stay behind, out of light’s way. Both of my pothos varieties, for instance—solid green Jade Pothos (Epipremnum aureum) and Silver Satin Pothos (Scindapsus pictus)—don't need it.
My Rabbit's Foot Fern (Davallia fejeensis), a newcomer, supposedly doesn't need sun either. It's an epiphytic, so it's weird to begin with. Epiphytics take water from air. So Rabbit's Foot doesn't need anything from me. In return, it doesn't show me any growth—whatsoever.
My Spider Plant (Chlorophytum comosum) can take light—or leave it. It lives on and on, no matter what, similar to the character Bruce Willis played in the film Unbreakable.
Now, Dragon's Tongue (Hemigraphis repanda) must be ushered to direct sun. It's what keeps the purple going in the purple parts of his purple and green leaves. This sparks motivation in me. As an aside, Dragon's Tongue requires an immense amount of water. I watered it while writing this, and tonight I'll probably water it again. I don't know where it all goes.
Snake Plant (Dracaena Trifasciata), yes, you need sunlight. It helps keep your lovely markings clear and colorful. Snaky has gotten tall—and quite beautiful—since arriving as a youngster. Now he's a heavy haul when I move him.
But even so, he's not the one on the dolly.
That would be my seriously sun-loving succulent: Jade Plant (Crassula ovata), to whom I'm addicted.
I like her so much that I propagated her. Being an asexual plant, she did most of the work. But I helped. This is how you do it: You take a leaf and place it in a moist piece of paper towel. Wait until you see roots (about four to six weeks), then place this single leaf plant with roots into a small pot of cactus soil. It'll sprout a stem and leaves.
As of this moment, the Jade family consists of Mama Jade, Infant Jade, and two Toddler Jades. The kids don't look like their mom, which is odd because they are clones. One toddler has tiny delicate leaves, and the other is big-boned and tall. The infant is only a few inches tall but shows evidence of a bent stem. He may need braces when he gets older.
Mama Jade has a past. She began life as a small plant from the garden section of a local home improvement store. She was a gift to my very little granddaughter who loved the idea of owning a plant. She named it Charlotte.
She took care of "Charley"—the affectionate nickname she gave her plant—for a few years. But as time went on, her priorities changed. I offered to take over, and she gladly accepted. She did want the best for the plant she once doted on.
Now it was my time to dote on Charley. She turned into a 3-foot-tall tree—bushy, healthy, and beautiful.
Pretty weighty, too, when you count the large square pot filled with soil. It's a chore to lug her around as we follow the sun together, her sitting placidly on the dolly as I negotiate getting us through narrow doorways.
It's a chore of love, though. It's what you do for family members, whether they are people, pets, or plants.
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