And we're back! Family time means plant trade hoe-down!

I am so lucky to have married in to such an awesomely plant entranced family!

Every visit means we all talk gardenshop, sip alcohol and haul out from our cars a miniature nursery of "extras" we wish to integrate within each others' gardens.  Pity one of the family lives in a tiny apartment with little light, but does that stop us from schlepping plants off onto him? No!  He'll just have to graciously deal, take in the ornamental pepper baby I gave him and try to figure out how to keep it alive despite his protests of "No light! No light!"

Ha, the big baby :)

Really, I'm not that overbearing! I swear! (I just have too many plants and feel less guilty about giving them to others rather than sending them to the composter!)

My mum in law had some extra raspberry plants to replace my rotted and dead ones (damn drainage issues) and also gave me cuttings of this interesting succulent:

That she calls an elephant cactus, but all internet searches seem to disagree with this name.  It reminds me sort of of a cross between a Christmas cactus and a Queen of the Night plant (as it roots randomly at various nodes and has a similar texture leaf, just serrated here).   Spiffy nonetheless and though it breaks with my edible tradition, I can't say no to interesting plants and this will keep me through the winter until spring where I can place it outside for the wolves! Just kidding.  I meant, just until spring where I can neglect it a little until I'll need it again in the winter like a baby needs its bobby.


My sis in law gave me random cuttings of hardy fig from a neighbor of hers, so that was splendid as I managed to kill mine this past spring.  (Well, I would rather not say it was my fault, it was the fig's fault for not being tough enough.  I was told that it was hardy enough for this area!)  So as she lives in a bit chillier of a location than mine and she states this fig is quite happy where she is, we'll assume that this one will survive ("... as long as I know how to love/I know I will stay alive."  this song just keeps popping up in my head when plants are involved!)


One impulse buy did occur at a garden store we went to this holiday:

A Hindu rope (Hoya Carnosa)!  To me, this was very spectacular plant (not edible either, dangit! Help! I'm losing my resolve for only edibles!) This was so unusual and exciting to me and I thought the husband would be amused by it too that I just bought it.  For $8, I figured why not?


Upon further inspection in the car I noticed it had some hirsute growing tips:

 and I sort of exclaimed out loud to my Mother & aunt & sister in laws, "Weird! It has some hairy bits on it! Wait, that sounded wrong."  Big grins all around luckily... I've been known to make inappropriate comments (because I can't keep my big mouth shut) and am still learning that thing called tact.

Anyways, friend in law watered my plants well while I was gone and nothing has died, though one appears to be on its way, but it looked as though it might prior to this trip anyways.  Speaking of which, I am waiting for said friend to write me a birthday column on why he doesn't do plants typically unless I ask him to care for mine while I am gone.  Prepare to read his plant bile soon-ish!