houseplants
that I've stolen or grown from tescos food
Hi friends,
A fun post for you today on smuggling mint in knickers and stealing plants from baths backstage at gigsā¦ !
Before we begin - have you taken a look at my Threshold offering? A 6 month container for 12 women exploring together our peri and menopause together in an emboldening and empowering and positive and supportive space. A gorgeous group of women is gathering, Iāll be capping it at 12 to keep it warm and intimate. Hereās all the info :
Before we begin - have you taken a look at my Threshold offering? A 6 month container for 12 women exploring together our peri and menopause together in an emboldening and empowering and positive and supportive space. A gorgeous group of women is gathering, Iāll be capping it at 12 to keep it warm and intimate. Hereās all the info :
ok, letās begin our post for today :
HousePlants
This is a post apropos nothing at all.
I just wanted to show you my house plants.
Specifically the house plants Iāve sort of stolen and the ones that have started out life as not very much at all.
If Iām honest, Iām struggling to keep on top of keeping them alive at the moment.
Of late, they are not getting very much love.
Life has been feeling quite like this:
So they are plucky wee souls, the plants in my house that are staying alive and growing.
Maybe there is some metaphor here about writing - that you can create art from very little, that you can keep growing despite many setbacks - but really, I just wanted to show you my plants ā¦
Let me introduce you :
MY CHINESE MONEY PLANTS
These fellas are the best. Originally flown over in a clump of damp tissue in my little sisterās suitcase on a visit from London where she lives, this one little shoot, the size of a ā¬2 coin, grew into many bigger shoots and has made 100ās of babies that are dotted around my home. For a time if you were in any way nice to me, Iād give you a money plant as a gift, but Iāve since run out of steam...
MY GERANIUMS
I went out for a coffee to my local cafĆ© a few months ago and they had a magnificent geranium climbing up a central pole. I loved it. Took a secret little cutting from around the back where no one would know and brought it home in my lemon cake napkin. Iām delighted with how itās grown, feel very pleased with my self for sneaking the cutting in plain sight in the busy room.
These are two more geraniums I nicked while out at a gig in west Cork. There was another MAGNIFICENT plant in the bath of the owner of the venue (my husband was playing, back stage was also the ownerās sitting room). I spotted the plant during my first pee, returned for a second tinkle with my handbag, snapped off two tiny pieces and wrapped them in loo roll. After the gig I filled the toothbrush holder in the hotel room with water and left them there over night. They are doing very well now in their new home.
NAME UNKNOWN
Not doing so well is this lady - I found her on the street in Berlin when we lived there about eight years ago. People in Berlin leave things on the streets they donāt want, other people pick them up and take them home. Itās a great system. She was delighted with herself in her new Berlin home, but never really recovered from the two weeks in a cardboard box on the back of a juggernaut being transported back to Ireland. Thrived for awhile, but then the cats started playing with her, and I keep forgetting to water.
NAME UNKNOWN
Took a wee cutting off a plant on my mother-in-laws kitchen windowsill and sheās turned into THIS which Iām pretty pleased about.
LEFTOVERS PLANTS
My son and I grew this lil lady from an avocado stone from Tescos.
And he grew this apple tree from a pip in his apple (possibly also from Tesco)
CACTUS :
I got my husband to buy me this cactus in a closing down sale in a furniture shop for Valentines Day. We donāt usually go in for Valentines Day gifts, but I thought a cactus was an original requestā¦! Since moving it to this sunnier spot itās started flowering, which is exciting. I throw my glass of water from the night before over it every few days and it seems to muddle through with that.
MOROCCAN MINT :
And finally - this is my Moroccan mint. I bought it from a man in a funny little garden centre in Co. Wexford. As I handed him the money for it he told me that his girlfriend had smuggled the original plant home in her knickers from Morocco in 1992. Unfortunately I think that of that every time I make a pot of mint tea.
What about your plants? What stories do they have to tell?
There seems to be a small army of us stealing plants and bits of plants to rescue! The unknown one from your MIL is a Tradescantia zebrina I think, and the German one looks like one too, but perhaps just the green version, it's hard to tell from the pic. You can cut off the happier bits and stick them in a jar of water (right way up). They will root very readily, then you can repot them. They do need to be kept moist, but are quite forgiving. I have pinched off many of these ragged ends from plants in garden centres ...
The mint story made me chuckle!