I went out nice and early this Saturday morning with the intention of going to Morrisons plants section to see what they had. To be honest I was hoping for a bargain Acer Palmatum …something or other, well, there are so many. And yes there were a couple of Acer Palmatum Phoenix but I didn’t think that they were spectacular enough for me to part with £10 for each one. I had wanted to check out the house plants with a view to picking up a Snake Plant – Sansevieria trifasciata, but don’t ask me which one as I haven’t yet made my mind up about that. Anyway, they had no snake plants on sale so I looked for an alternative and was immediately drawn to this bendy looking Crassula / Jade plant. Growing up, mum had a really well established one of these which looked essentially like a bonsai and weighed a ton! This Crassula is a different kettle of fish; its weight would appear to be in proportion with its size, but this is still much more than other plants and the two ‘trunks’ appear to have had some kind of falling out / or divide and conquer strategy! Honestly I am already considering getting a more hefty pot or planter in order to anchor the thing wherever I put it, or else spend a small amount of time picking up the pot and any spilled soil every day. Hey-ho, I have wanted one of these for most of this year so am very glad to have one now that I may be able to nurture into a nice shape. I should add that for reasons which escape my comprehension, a lot of the leaves have become speckled with glitter and look ‘fabulous’ – as in y’know, Christmassy! I’m hoping this changes soon, real soon!

Moving on to plant number two which immediately hit me as being a Dracaena Marginata…oh you silly boy, no it isn’t. No, dear readers, according to the label (which for the life of me I can’t find) this is a Dracaena but a Dracaena Sandriana. Enter “Dracaena Sandriana” into Google and see as it tells you that this is one of those Lucky Bamboo things which is not actually bamboo…the jury is still out on whether it’s lucky or not. Everybody loves a good varigated plant and I’m no exception. Yes, currently it does look quite a size – it’s about 28cm tall. However, my little cubicle is not the most illuminated corner of the globe and I don’t imagine it’ll get much taller than 45cm or so over the next decade, so proportionally it’s not going to dominate my desk…much!

And now onto the third plant (which has made it onto my desk), this is a Spathiphyllum. A what? Spathiphyllums are what we call “Peace Lilies”, I did not know that when I bought it, and perhaps that’s for the best as I might not have bought it because subtle these things are not! I’m anticipating this thing putting on plenty of growth, amazingly enough I got it because I liked the foliage, the rest of the world buys these for the flowers which are huge and if memory serves me right, aromatic? Google indicates that these plants are ‘lightly fragrant’, time will tell but I seem to remember one of these from a place I once worked and it smelled nappyesque(?) yikes! Ah well if it stinks it stinks and I’ll deal with it if and when.

I have one more plant to smuggle onto my desk, I don’t know what type it is and anything about how it will grow or if it will even fit on the desk but ah well, if that’s the most risky thing I do this year then it’ll be a calm year so we’ll have to wait and see. I definitely don’t have room for any more plants after this so it looks like the illusive Snake plant will have to go on hold for some time, I’d take on home but I think they may be toxic to cats and Pepper has a good old chew at every and anything and I love the little bugger too much to make him ill.

 

Until next time…