Foster Plants

The scenario goes something like this…A child wants a dog.  All his friends have dogs and he is the only one without a dog.  The child’s busy parents, wary of another long term commitment won’t agree to get a dog.  The child chips away at the parents’ resistance until they finally give in—as long as … Read more

Fancy Plants

House plants are all the rage, in North America and abroad.  Shelter magazine photographers are working overtime trying to get shots of everything from begonias to banana trees.  Pinterest is full of luxurious tropical plants.  Horticulture publications that used to treat house plants as afterthoughts now devote entire sections, or sometimes entire issues to indoor … Read more

I Hate Ivy

The experts agree; Napoleon never uttered that famous palindrome, “Able was I ere I saw Elba”.  It isn’t a palindrome in French, and even in exile, Napoleon probably never admitted that a comeback wasn’t waiting somewhere in the wings.  Since any claim to Napoleonic authorship has now been discredited, I will feel free to alter … Read more

Proudly Polka-Dotted

Madagascar is an island nation off the south coast of Africa with unique climates and topography.  It is probably best known for vanilla beans and lemurs, with the lemurs taking the prize for visibility ever since their cinematic star turns in The Lion King and the Madagascar movies. Polka dot plants or Hypoestes phyllostachya also … Read more

We Still Call It Coleus

If you happen to be a flashy individual who changes your name every few years and carries on colorfully in public places, you might be called a “performance artist”, or possibly something even more descriptive.  If you were to morph into plant form and do the same thing, gardeners would simply ignore all the name … Read more