My First Houseplant

My First Plant

I remember my first car. It was a 1956 Morris Minor with no floor. I remember my first yogurt, back in the days when Ski just started and forgot to put sugar in the mix. I remember the name of the first man on the moon, my first go on a two wheeled bike and strangely enough I also remember my first house plant.
I was a young teen and spent my weekly paper round wages on a two stemmed yucca in a 2 litre pot. They were very exotic and quite rare at the time coming in from overseas and the plant took pride of place on my dressing table in the bedroom next to the coloured light bulbs, incense sticks and Gong LP’s (I was and still am a bit of a hippy). The plant survived for quite a while and died mainly due to overwatering I think, which is why most houseplants die. I kept taking the leaves off and cutting it back but it finally gave up on me and ended up as a stump. I went out to buy more plants to adorn the bedroom but try as I might I just can’t think what I bought. It’s like trying to name the second car you bought or the second man on the moon. All that I know is by the time I was on my mid twenties I prided myself in having over 90 different types of plants (300 in total)festooned around what was then my own home.

High Humidity

There’s a lot of moisture in 300 houseplants so I had a bit of a humidity problem and some of them, like my 5 foot in diameter aspidistra tended to get in the way a bit when exiting the room. It might have been the biggest one in the world and just the one that the song was written about. I did pride myself in not having paid a penny for any of them too. I used to take cuttings from friends plants and got a lot of them from garden centres skilfully nipping the tips off to root at home, of course no-one does that sort of thing anymore. Another way I used to add to the collection besides rescuing ones from dustbins was because of the job I did at the time. I delivered furniture to customer’s houses and if I saw any nice specimens I would ask them for cuttings or little baby plants. I found this was a great way to get things and eventually stocked most of my kitchen out with cups and mugs. I used to tell people that I collected them, which usually resulted in them rummaging around and offering me one to add to the collection. I suppose I wasn’t telling fibs as after the first one I probably was collecting then anyway.

Doubled Up

Things have changed dramatically since living in the humid house though. We had a present from a neighbour last week of a potted begonia. It made me realise that this plant actually doubled our houseplant collection. Before this one came along all we had was a neglected petunia in the hallway. I suppose it’s because I tend to look after edible plants outside and I have found other things to fill the gaps on the shelves, or the lads have anyway.
There will be lots of “exotic” (Don’t like draughts) plants around at this time of the year and I’m sure there will be something for everyone to brighten up the Christmas table, poinsettias, orchids, cyclamen, azaleas and the rest. One of our neighbours has plastic shrubs and flowers in their garden for winter and although this might save a bit of time and effort watering them and protecting them from the frost, they do look a bit odd.
I am trying (in vain I might add) to get the synthetic Christmas tree again this year, they don’t look odd at all do they? The family is split 50% about getting a real one or a lovely 1metre high plastic one that neatly folds away until the following year with all its needles in place. It’s been like this for years now and I can’t seem to understand why, although it’s a 50-50 split in the family, I am always on the losing side when it comes to choosing the tree. I suppose we are keeping the forestry industry going if nothing else.
I’ve just remembered what my second plant was. Well not so much plant, but type of plant. I delved into the prickly world of cacti and grew hundreds of them from seed. Now there’s a plant that thrives on neglect.

Buzz Aldrin was the second man on the moon ( I just Googled it)