Our office was having a fund drive for United Way and I potted up some plants for a raffle. I found the galvanized pails at the craft store and they came with plastic liners perfect for plantings. I bought ivy, colichea, and philodendron and split them up into three inexpensive arrangements. Mr. Pom cut the bamboo stakes for me and I trained the ivy up the bamboo and tied the stakes together with some ribbon. The crowning touch were some faux eggs I had left over from Easter. I tucked a few into each pail and they looked just like some houseplant a farmer's wife had on the back porch where a chicken laid an egg. Very cute, but just short of "twee", which is my life motto. Cute but not twee. (My sister asked me what "twee" meant: if you can pronounce it, you shouldn't have to ask.)
I kept one pot for myself and it'll go on the porch once it gets warmer.
The table in the photo is in my kitchen and is an old farm table we bought in Fresno. The top is made from old barn wood, and the rest is painted a lovely distressed green. We need storage in the kitchen, so we bought some bed risers to put under the legs and I made the skirt out of batik cloth. It Velcros on and off and looks a little worse for wear at the moment because it gets a lot of washing due to a certain Fluffernutter, but it hides a wealth of clutter. Someday, when the children stop leeching off us finish all their schooling, we will replace the cheap, broken, horribly dated and ugly kitchen that we got stuck with when we moved from Memphis and were priced out of the NY housing market and had to leave my 40 foot long, ceramic tiled, fireplace with paneled hearth, white cabinets, and two self-cleaning wall ovens that and looked out on our inground pool and twenty hydrangeas we planted with the sweat of our brow because I just had to move back to NY to be with my family and I'm not bitter but a little family goes a long way, y'know and now all I have is a lot of family and this lousy kitchen renovate the kitchen and the farm table is going right into my art room.
I haven't had a houseplant since I left Memphis 7 years ago. There was plenty of room for plants on the floor, windowsills, and counters. Here, nada. But putting together the plantings for our little raffle has inspired me to start collecting some plants again.
I bought this delicate English ivy and plopped it into this cool, heavy, ceramic pot calligraphed with Japanese characters. Right now it is moving from room to room until I decide where it won't die. Or maybe thrive, but really, I hope for the not die as much as the thrive. I bought a cyclamen for my desk in March. I kept it home for a week until the temps were above freezing. The temps rose, the plant died before it even got to the office. Right now I have another one on my desk at work and I could tell you how it is doing but then I'd have to give you the evil eye. I've started a little plant revolution at work. I was touched when our very young admin had a hyacinth and a pot of tulips next to the ivy I gave her as a gift for helping me move my office. She told me I inspired her. And then a new attorney ran out to Stew Leonard's to buy a bunch of plants for her office to warm it up.
I am now The Plant Lady at the office. Which shows you the dearth of originality amongst lawyers as I only brought in a couple. It's all part of my plan to humanize my life. And to bring some personality to the white walls of my office. My admin has large photos of Georgia O'Keeffe paintings taken from a calendar all over her cubicle. I love standing there talking to her and letting my mind wander about how I would paint the same flowers.
Keeping plants in the house makes me think of my mother and my grandmother.Our house had a landing at the top of the stairs and there was a large window with a long shelf built in front of it. My mother kept a big variety of houseplants, and it being the seventies, there were plenty of hanging pots in macrame. Remember those little plant feeders that were ceramic birds. You'd fill the birds with water and the water would slowly leach into the soil and water the plant. In the summer, they'd open the big, screened porch and all the plants would be hung around the perimeter. We though the pots hung with invisible fishing line were the height of grooviness. It being the seventies and all. My grandmother had a cactus that was about two feet tall. She told me once then when it reached the ceiling, she was going to call the local paper to come over and take a photo. Every time we went to her house, which was probably at least once a week, I check the cactus. It never made it to the ceiling, but it kept me entertained for years. Hey, it was before cable.
This year, we are going to plant a bazillion pots all along the side of the house next to the porch. Since we put up the fence and the gate across the driveway, our fantasy is to have the driveway from the garage to the gate dug up and raised beds and trees planted along a wandering path. Right. Reality: a million bedding plants from Home Depot in pots along with some eye candy like morning glories growing up twig teepees and tons of herbs and cascading petunias and our the chairs situated with the backs to the blacktop.
That's the way to live life in a nutshell: employ lots of eye candy and keep your back to the blacktop.
