Patty Makes Three

Random post!  And unfortunately, that post title does not mean I have a new kitten.

I'd love one, Grizabella would (eventually) love one, but Audio would never forgive me.  Grumpy old man-cat.

Once upon a time, before I moved to where I live now, I had quite the collection of houseplants.  Forty-seven, if I remember correctly.  All kitty-safe.

Then I moved, and the propane was supposed to be gone, because even a whiff gives me a migraine.  Instead, I moved my plants carefully, and some of my furniture, and came back after the weekend to find the house stinking of propane and most of my plants dead.  I know I'm lucky the place didn't blow up, but I still was upset about my plants.  Only eight of them lived.  I didn't have the time and money to invest in replacing them, so I just babied the eight to the point that I jokingly gave them names to annoy my siblings.

Last year, during the blizzard, I lost six of those eight.  Our generator wasn't working and that was that.

The two I had left were Penny and Polly, respectively.  One Aloe plant and one Christmas cactus.  And I only managed to save part of them.  They seemed to go dormant for awhile, but recently they've been getting bigger and bigger and now they pretty much need new pots.

Here they are, cavorting with my owl collection:


Penny is the Aloe, and Polly is the cactus. (She likes to grow down instead of up.)  It was just coincidence that left the two live plants with P names and double letters.  I decided to just keep the two and not worry about houseplants for now.

Yesterday, my Mum, who is not much of a plant lover, had a friend hand her a very, very sad little plant.

She promptly handed it to me.  Here it is as it looked yesterday:


I don't even know what those brown things are supposed to be.  They are paper-mache or something.  They are plant-pokes, and there were five.  All stuck in the dirt of a very, very pot-bound plant.

Here's the new plant today - named Patty so she would match, haha! - in her temporary pot.  It was all I had available until I can get some new ones.  I'll be leaving her in it for a while now, though, so she doesn't get shocked by too many moves.  It's sitting on her old pot until I can get a pie pan or something to put under it.  Doesn't she look a lot happier, though?  In just a day!


It's going to take a little while to coax her into a pretty shape - vines can be a lot of fun when you train them to grow where you want.

I don't really plan to add any more right now - does anyone happen to know what the plant-name of Patty is, though?  I haven't looked her up yet.

To keep a little stitching interest, here is another HAED from my layaways:


Prindle's 'Untamed Spirit'.