A few weeks ago I found myself wandering through the garden section at my local Lowe’s, looking at plants. I’m pretty good with outdoor plants. I put them out where they’ll get some sun and some rain, and once in a while I trim them, and generally they do all right for themselves.
Indoor plants are not so easy. My house was built in the 1950s, and it was designed to stay cool in the Texas summer: windows shaded by porches and vines, and a roof shaded by lots of trees (a magnet for guys with a pickup truck, a chain saw, and a limited command of the English language, but that’s another story ). So I don’t have a lot of big sunny windows. Actually, I don’t have any big sunny windows.
But in the house plant ward at Lowe’s, I found a handsome dark green plant with a tag that read “Plants of Steel.” “Wants minimal attention,” the tag said. “I can do that,” I said.
The plant, called Zamioculcas zamiifoli, didn’t have a common name on its tag, but I like ZZ Plant. (I’m not the first to think of that, as I found when I looked it up on Wikipedia.) It comes from eastern Africa and was introduced to commercial production by Dutch nurseries about twenty years ago.
Apparently ZZ Plant is happy in its new home, because not long after I brought it home, I noticed a new, light green shoot springing up through its established branches.
August 3
A few days later, the new shoot was a good bit taller and beginning to unfurl.
August 12
And this morning, taller and more open.
August 20
And if you look right in the middle of the plant, you’ll see the tip of a smaller new shoot. According to Wikipedia, ZZ Plant may even flower in due time.
Watching plants grow–yet another distraction from writing.
Kay Hudson 