200726 spider plant

july 26 spider plant.

I don't have much of a green thumb. I'm a haphazard gardener: a lot of love but very little knowhow or actual gardening! Some years our house has been plant-free just because the only spare surface with good light was too out-of-the-way to remember to water! Now we have a plant corner in the front room, with my old spider plant (not related to the one in this story) and my mother-in-law's plant that I adopted when she died and Tamar's spider plants from her office. She brought them home when the office got covid-closed.They are from my current spider plant.

I only remembered today that my teenage obsession with houseplants began with a spider plant. My mother, father, brother and I were staying at a bed-and-breakfast near Meaford for a weekend of skiing. We went out in the dark, to see the cows in the barn all warm, stomped through the deepest snow I had ever seen, feet of it. (I remember how my dad seemed different that weekend. Why do i think that, remember that? Did the snow and the farm remind him of somewhere?) My memories are snapshots: the heaps of snow on the drive north, thick on the roads and fields, the rambling storybook farmhouse, the early darkness of winter, the cattle in the barn and the dim yellow colour of the lights and the straw. 

   The spider plant hung in the centre hall of the farmhouse. There must have been light from the kitchen or the dining room. The plant hung from a high shelf, or a hook from the ceiling and cascaded in daughters and granddaughters and more and more baby spiders. I was intrigued and enchanted. And when we left, the host, (she was lovely and round and wore an apron with a frilly bib), gave me a few baby spiders wrapped in newspaper to take home. That was when I began to learn about houseplants! I acquired  a grow-light, collected every sort of houseplant and created terreriums in jars and cultivated wild plants I found. 

The skiing was amazing that weekend, best ever. The snow was perfect and being right near the ski place we were on the hills first thing until last run. We all skied: mother, father and all the kids. Steve was the best, and became an instructor in Banff. 

Keep safe. Take care of your plants. 

Mumma Yaga