The Hot House

Spring hasn’t graced Ames with his presence yet, and a blizzard coats the world outside my windows white. The trees of Gateway Hills shudder in the cold, and their frozen branches snap like twigs in the blowing wind. However, magnificent Spring must have kissed my home, because my plants are blooming and have started bursting forth in all their glory! It was late last summer when I discovered that I had a green thumb, and though it was very late in the season when I began, more than forty potted plants flourished on my deck. Come winter, I had to be selective about what I could bring into the limited space of my already crowded apartment. I picked fourteen plants to bring home, and moved six to my office. I had to leave the rest to die in the cold. I know that some of them, such as the mint, will grow back. But some others won’t.

One of my fourteen plants, the largest of my curry-leaf plants, perished mid-winter. Three of his sisters survive. An African violet that I had left outside to die, survived the rain and freezing for a month with such amazing fortitude that I brought it in. Omana Auntie, whose African Violets are rather sickly little things, is convinced that mine is a wild plant. All winter, my plants survived, barely growing. But now, my Chlorophytum Comosum is growing at such an astonishing rate that I am afraid, I might have to repot it before spring really breaks through. I had clipped my golden pothos’ trailing stems, and placed them in water. In two weeks, they have grown astonishingly long roots and will be ready to be planted in a week’s time. My bamboos are pushing up new leaves, and the old ones have started yellowing at the tips. And my wandering Jews add a shocking patch of purple to my home. As Charles Ryder said to Sebastian, "My room looks like a hot house!" A new season of gardening is beginning, and I can’t wait to start again!