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| More orchids, please! |
It’s only the end of November and already I’ve got the crankies from not getting enough fresh air and exercise. I’m one of those people who loathes structured exercise time; I can’t go for a run, for example, both because I find it insanely boring and because my left knee was stepped on by a horse many years ago. (How, you ask? That’s a story for another day. But suffice to say that yes, it hurts.) I kind of like walking on the indoor treadmill while I listen to music, but I much prefer outdoor work like mowing the lawn with the push mower, or weeding, or tackling the myriad garden tasks that fill my weekends and evenings spring, summer and fall. The calendar still says it is fall, but my garden says winter, and although I could prune or weed, there’s not much to do.
Now the house plants normally take up my interest at this time of year, but my beloved plant room is in complete disarray. It’s for a good cause. Hubby is creating built-in bookshelves for me that will encircle the room like cozy arms filled with wonderful, glorious books. He had the great idea to put tile on top of the bookcase, thus doubling the area upon which I can grow house plants. He is painting the bookcases black, to match the one I already have in the plant room, and we found linoleum tiles that blend perfectly with the rough-stone look of the floor. He is finishing the task this week and touching up the paint on the existing bookcase where water has stained it. But in the meantime, I’ve got plants tucked in all sorts of corners of the house. I keep forgetting to water them. When they are in the plant room, I’ve got my routine down pat. I water and check all of the plants each Sunday. But now that my plants are in three different rooms, I keep forgetting them. Oh well. One is the cactus terrarium my father in law grew. It’s in a hot, sunny room. It will probably like that better than where I had it before, and cactus don’t mind going without attention….
What should I get to add to my collection? I know I want a cyclamen. I miss my cyclamen. I had a wonderful cyclamen many years ago, but when I moved to Huntington, New York, I didn’t have the right light for it and it died. I also had a beautiful jasmine that suffered the same fate. I want to replace both of those plants and add to my African violet collection. And I have always wanted a few more orchids.
But for now, I have to be content with dreaming about plants. I keep looking out the window at the garden. I want to start a countdown to iris season, but I’m told that is taking things a bit too far. Well, at least for now, the phlox is blooming; out of season, yes, but blooming.
Soon. For now, the garden is sleeping.
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| Violets in my plant room, before the construction. |
