The Provenance of Plants

The appropriate painting to go with this title finally came around.  But then I took a photograph to lead.  In my teens, as now, I had a pretty great fondness for plants.   My friend told me that another friend’s mother said that if you received a plant as a gift, the plant would thrive or struggle the same as your relationship with the giver.  I’ve not proven that, but I do try to keep a close watch over plants that were gifts.  I no longer keep plants indoors.  They can be a little messy; my cat is wont to mess with them, and besides I have a yard and a front porch and a gentle climate. 

All my potted plants have come to me at some place and time for some reason.  Some were gifts. Several I’ve selected at plant sales and nurseries.  There is a local garden club plant swap; relatives and friends have provided cuttings from their own plants.  None of my plants dates back to those years in my teens, and there is at least one reason for that  The last place I lived was a townhouse.  I kept my potted plants along a wall by my front door.  Some of the plants were really lovely specimen palms and cacti I’d had for years.  I had to move them when waterproofing work was done, and deep trenches were dug outside all the exterior walls.  I moved the plants under a big pine tree along side the driveway close to the street.  The waterproofing work took a few months.  I remember it was 1991.  My second son was born and my father died.  One day I came home and my potted plants were gone.  Presumably taken; unquestionably gone.  

Two more times, since I moved to my current home, I’ve had plants stolen.  One time two or three small young bonsai trees were taken; I think it must have been in May, because I remember a friend of mine opined that it was kids looking for presents to give their mothers.  Made me wonder how my friend used to acquire his Mothers’ Day gifts.  The other time was soon after this painting was painted on my front porch on a rainy day.  The two small plants in the center of the painting were taken.  They were nice little plants in nice little pots.  They might have been nice gifts for someone.    

I have some remaining plants with interesting origin stories.  Once in this blog, I mentioned that an old guy at the Joshua Tree Motel gave me beavertail cactus.  That cactus grew and still lives in a pot.  Several pieces of it grew in other pots.  One pot fell over and the cactus grew up in my rose garden.  That is the cactus in the photograph.  I’ve also learned that it isn’t a beavertail cactus, but some other kind of opuntia.  I have a kalanchoe with orange flowers, along with several of its offspring.  I gave the kalanchoe to my husband on the occasion of his vasectomy.  I have string of hearts plants that came from a plant my parents told me came from a plant that they admired when they were shopping for a home.  As far as know, I don’t possess any stolen plants.