This is a photo of a 12 inch Aloe plant in a 2 inch pot, held up by a glass tube, hanging from the ceiling in my office. The "plant tube" is hanging from a 3-D printed disc. The photo is lit with a bright LED that cast crazy shadows on the wall. Behind the Aloe is a large scale photo I made a few years ago featuring a moth and a tulip from my yard.
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I have come to think of my indoor plants as house guests. But when they visit, I have no idea how long they will stay. I try to accommodate their needs: light, water, humidity and temperature. Occasional fertilizer. Insect intervention. Sometimes I get it right, sometimes I don’t. I have had house guests shrivel up and turn brown, or go limp and mushy, or lose all their leaves in a matter of months. Other house guests have hung around for years on end. I’m not particular about who visits or where they come from. My guests hail from renown nurseries like Logees in Danielson and from generic big box stores like Home Depot and Big Y. Many were gifts. Some were rescued. All were welcome.
A note about this website: This Google Site is a low-tech photography exercise and plant "diary." I wanted a reason to photograph my plants and gardens on a semi-regular basis. I’m using my phone and photographing when the plant blooms or the light is right. I’m not stylizing the photos. I’m not making the plants look pretty by deadheading or pruning (although I should be doing that regardless).
I’m including links to plant care guides as part of the text, mostly for my own sake. I’m not remotely a gardening or plant expert. Often, I draw a blank on plant names, let alone how much light or water they need.
A somewhat smushed African Violet and an unidentified cactus - perhaps a Peanut Cactus - sitting on a local Mountain Dairy milk box in our sunny breakfast nook. African Violets remind me of my mother because she had many, and the cactus actually came from my mother's house in 2023 when the house was sold. It is a "rescue" plant. Plants too can connect the generations and remind us of our loved ones. I can list all the plants in my house and yard that came from relatives.
The cactus in this photo is currently a twisted mass of horizontal fingers. If it blooms, I may be able to identify it. For now, it lives "down low," within the orange cat's reach. The orange cat leaves the cacti and African Violets alone. He may accidentally knock them off the sill (like the violet), but he doesn't eat them.
The Chinese Money Plant has a well-documented history. It was first described in English in 1912 but it didn't make its way to Europe (Norway, specifically) until 1946. And then it took another 60 or 70 years to become a favored houseplant in the West.
Left: Chinese Money Plant
Pilea peperomioides, AKA UFO plant, Coin Plant & Pancake Plant, native to southern China. This plant is from Logees in CT. Most of my plants from Logees don't survive longterm. My home is too dry, too cold. This one keeps on keeping on. But it refuses to grow upright, so it requires staking. It probably needs more light. I need more windows.
Right: A very statuesque and Roman Pothos, next to a photo taken in Rome. This may be a Golden Pothos. It's a baby. It needs indirect light and less water and humidity than many houseplants. My kind of plant.
I love a fun pot. This one came from Ocean State Job Lot, my go-to store for ceramic pots. The Job Lot pickings get slim as the season warms up, so shop for pots in late April or early May.
Alocasia "Polly" - Also known as the African Mask plant or Elephant Ear plant. I've had this plant for about 8-10 years. It lived outside the first summer. It has essentially split in two, right down the middle. Outside the window in a pot is another type of Elephant Ear (grown from bulbs that were over-wintered). The "Polly" is staked to prevent toppling. I love its waxy leaves.
Above Left: The "Polly" definitely communicates with its much bigger cousins that live on the patio.
Above Right: I am not sure, but I think this is a Alocasia reginula "Black Velvet." It has rounder, velvety rather than waxy leaves. It's a baby. It lives on the porch.
Left: Coral Cactus
(a grafted Cactus)
This plant has been accidentally toppled over by the cats multiple times and has survived at least one substantial fall - with a few scars. It's about 6 - 8 years old. It is next to a Jade.
Right: A "senior" African Violet - this is perhaps the longest surviving plant in my house. The violet is next to one of Aidan's grafted Moon Cacti.
Top of a Fiddlehead Fig (Ficus lyrata) with a Boston Fern in the background. The fig is Aidan's plant but it summers on our porch. It is 38 inches high now (2024). The Boston Fern is a behemoth. It is three years old and winters in our bathroom.
The Fiddlehead Fig is one of my seasonal "summer" house guests. These are the plants that live with my son Aidan in his small urban apartment during the fall and winter. He’s a teacher and has the summers mostly off from work. He spends much of the warm weather in the countryside with us. And his plants (and the orange cat) come with him.
This is our master bath "solarium." We don't use the tub (preferring to use the shower). So I created a shelf for plants by putting a distressed "country" ladder across the tub and topping it with plate glass. The paper blinds subdue the southern exposure. The shower provides humidity. From left to right: a ZZ plant, two Laceleaf Anthuriums and a Prayer Plant. In the winter, the lineup is more crowded. Plants hang from hooks. Below: the Anthuriums were planted in clear glass cylinders with stratified layers and clay pebbles on the bottom. I like watching the roots grow.
I have two four foot plate glass shelves in the east-facing windows of my 2-floor home office that I use for succulents. Many of these cacti were gifts and I don't know much about them. The center plant is a Gollum Jade (Crassula ovata) which I purchased at a plant sale at Naumkeag in Stockbridge in 2019. It's one of the Tolkien Jades. It's next to a Burros Tail (Sedum morganianum), also called a Donkey's Tail. I have a larger Burros Tail (from Woodland Gardens in Manchester) on another shelf. Burro Tail succulents are rather fragile.
Above: Anonymous cacti (including one appallingly spray painted pink) and a Ficus Bonsai Tree (fig family) in my home office. The Bonsai Tree is a new addition (2024). It's a Costa Farms product. Costa Farms is a big box supplier but has a location in Asheville, NC (so at least it has cool employees). I've read that there may be between 800 and 2000 different species of Ficus. Which one is this? It could be a Ginseng Ficus - considered a "beginner's Bonsai." This plant needs a true Bonsai appropriate pot. But before I repot it, I'll see if I can keep it alive for a year.
Above: A fanciful baby head planter with a Spider Plant ("Night Out" Chlorophytum). The orange cat likes to eat my Spider Plants, so I am learning to keep them out of reach. This one dangles from a 3-D printed, hanging plant tray purchased on Etsy.
Left, Above & Below:
The Crown of Thorns, Christ Plant, or Christ's Thorn (Euphorbia milii) is a succulent native to Madagascar. This is a rescue plant. Aidan brought this spiky specimen home from Suffield Academy. It was given to him by his former environmental science teacher, Nick Zanussi, in 2015. It's now 36 inches high and has three naked and cruel thorny canes with leaves at the top of each. It regularly flowers.
Swiss Cheese Monstera (Monstera adansonii) is a South American plant. This is a newer addition to the house and it rapidly grew long tendrils that are now suspended away from the cat. By long, I mean eight to ten feet long. Like most of my houseplants, it wants bright, indirect light. I need more windows.
I don't really know what to do with the Swiss Cheese Monstera. Its growth is aggressive.
Right: a wandering tendril is pictured against the thick native ferns that grow outside our kitchen windows.
I bought this Pitcher Plant at the PHS Philadelphia Flower Show during a snow storm in 2016. The city was mostly shut down - streets impassible by car. I carried the then small plant back to my hotel tucked in my jacket. I am not sure which species of Nepenthes this is. It lives in our bathroom solarium during the winter and outside during the summer. I feed it flies. This plant came with a stowaway - there was/is a Rabbit's Foot Fern cohabitating in the same pot.
No house plant collection is complete without an orchid or two. My success rate of getting orchids to re-bloom is very low. Even if I manage to keep them alive for a few years, they seldom re-bloom. I think orchids are beyond my skill set. This orchid was purchased at Logees and this is the second time it has bloomed.
Speaking of re-blooming, I over-wintered eight Amaryllis bulbs for the first time this year (2023-2024). The bulbs came from various places, including Amazon, Home Depot and a very expensive one from White Flower Farm in CT. Some of the bulbs (like this big boy) blossomed twice in 2023 - once during the winter and once in July. Six of the eight bulbs blossomed again in 2024.
Our porch faces northeast, but has plenty of subdued light. The skylights help keep the area bright. Left: A lush variegated "Marble Queen" or "Devil's Ivy" Pothos (Epipremnum aureum, from Ladds Nursery in Windham) hangs on the porch. A Boston Fern, a Fiddlehead Fig and Aidan's tall Money Tree (above) live on the porch during the summer too (with a host of companions). The "Marble Queen" Pothos is also known as a Money Plant in parts of Asia. I guess you can't have too much money.
This polka-dot Angel Wing Begonia (Begonia maculata variegata) was purchased from White Flower Farm or Logees (I can't remember) and it grew in a container on the patio for a summer before being brought in for the winter. It is now 7 or 8 years old and 7 or 8 feet tall. Each year I prune the top when it reaches the ceiling. It is quite possibly a "Wightii."
It is held up by a trellis in a west facing window and is festooned with Christmas lights and Mexican, cut tin ornaments.
I like how the afternoon sun makes the Begonia's "two-sided" leaves glow red. Like the Rattlesnake Plant (below), the Begonia's leaves have a front and back - the side of the leaves facing the sun are green. The Rattlesnake Plant glows purple in the setting sun.
The Begonia is kept company in the window by an array of Thanksgiving and Christmas Cacti.
Above: This Begonia is now too big to put out of the orange cat's reach.
Left: Both of the "original" cats nibbled on house plants. The "original" cats predate the orange cat. But since the original cats went outside and chewed on the grass, the inside damage was minimal. The visiting cat, AKA the orange cat, is strictly an indoor cat. His appetite is voracious. Since he joined the menagerie, I have had to build new plant shelves and re-locate the plants that taste best to him. Among his favorite plants to nibble: the Ponytail Palm, the Rattlesnake Plant, my three Spider Plants, my three ZZ Plants and for some reason, my Fig Tree.
The tastiest plants now live on a dresser and window shelf in the master closet. The closet has a west facing window. The orange cat is not allowed in the closet.
Right: A closeted ZZ Plant (Zamioculcas zamiifolia) and a Rattlesnake Plant (Calathea lancifolia). The Rattlesnake Plant was purchased from Logees in 2017.
I have never been able to keep the leaves on my Rattlesnake or Prayer Plant from eventually turning brown along the edges. I don't think my house is sufficiently dew-pointed.
Left: Kalanchoe tomentosa is also known as a Panda Plant. This variety is a Chocolate Soldier (I think), though its brown-edged fuzzy leaves are a bit longer than many. It is a succulent. It lived on my patio during the summer of 2023.
Right: A Peperomia from Woodland Gardens in Manchester. There are supposedly a 1,000 different Peperomia species. I don't know which species I have. The leaves are waxy. Peperomia's unscented blooms appear as spindly green spikes. They don't look like flowers.
This Red Desert Rose (Adenium obesum) was purchased from Logees in 2017. It has been a problem plant. The leaves often grow all twisted and fall off and I treat it for fungi, though I'm not sure if fungi is the problem. Come spring, I send it to live outside and it grows new, healthy looking leaves. But it has never flowered. I love it's bulbous, almost Bonsai stalk.
Left: Echeveria lilacina or Mexican Hens and Chicks. Also called a Ghost Echeveria. This one bloomed in July 2024.
Right: Parodia mammulosa is also known as a Tom Thumb or Lemon Ball cactus. It bloomed off and all all summer. It liked the weather on the patio.
This is a dwarf Meyer's Lemon Tree from Logees. It lives on the patio during the summer. It started in a 5" pot and is still quite small - about two feet high. In three years, it has produced three lemons. Well, three lemons have grown large enough to harvest. Some fruit fell off while still green. It seems to blossom twice a year. It's thought to be a cross between a lemon and an orange, hybridized a 100 years ago.
This is a "Beer’s Black" Fig - a dwarf fig tree that produces medium- sized figs, also from Logees. It started out in a 4" pot. It is now a couple feet high and three years old. It lives outside during the summer. Inside, during the winter, it eventually drops most of its leaves. The orange cat likes to eat its leaves, so I have to keep this plant out of his reach. It produced a fig for the first time during the summer of 2024.
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