MY SPIDEY SENSE IS TINGLING!

By LADYBUG

 Lisa Munoz loves her plant babies. She really, really loves them. Enough to give them names. She introduces us to a peace lily named Patsy and a small money tree named Robert Plant.

You know that this not someone swayed by gorgeous foliage in a nursery who will then leave the poor plant to its own devices once she brings it home.

This is someone who has learned about plants, done her research and asked questions. She has “practised” on plants and enrolled in plant-care classes.

“And ta-da! Here I stand, a plant lover who can’t stop buying plants, learning about plants, and dreaming about plants.”

Before she got here, she confesses right up front, she watched many plants “die a slow and painful death”.

She shares her experience and learnings in House Planted, a book about her favourite plants supplemented with information about common as well as unusual plants. With tips for both the novice and the experienced.

Her list of favourite plants is so long that I realize with a sigh of pleasure that she, too, never met a plant she doesn’t like.

I read about one called Hindu Rope Hoya. Native to East Asia, this epiphytic vine has very thick, tightly ruffled, twisting leaves that dangle like ropes. It’s makes me happy to read that this plant, unlike a myriad common house plants, is nontoxic and pet-friendly.

As is my spider plant. Which has had so many babies that I am known to grab passersby to ask if they can give a few a loving home.

This is how Munoz describes the process:

When happy, a spider plant produces small white flowers that eventually flourish into plantlets – and often those plantlets produce plantlets too!

She is a proponent of plants in living rooms, bedrooms, offices, kitchens and washrooms – in any space, in fact, where their needs will be met.

I found her suggestions for plants in the bedroom interesting because one rarely sees any mention of flowering plants in books on indoor plants – the focus tends to be on shades of green and variegated leaves and different shapes and textures rather than blooms.

But here she is, recommending lavender and jasmine “to reduce stress with their sweet fragrances”.

There are sections on planters, plant stands, plant care. And on propagation and pests – two things that keep us gardeners busy year-round. Pick up a copy, your plants will thank you!

Many of your favourite writers on one of your favourite topics – what more could one ask for on a cold winter evening?

In Garden Stories, I find quotes on and tales of the tilled earth, enchanted spaces and spaces one escapes to. Dreaming of vast swaths of ipomea, one woman sows 10 whole pounds of seeds and waits “in great agitation for the promised paradise to appear. It did not, and I learned my first lesson”.

Doris Lessing describes a vegetable garden in jewel tones. “Rich chocolate earth studded emerald green, frothed with the white of cauliflowers, jewelled with the purple globes of eggplants and the scarlet wealth of tomatoes.”

DH Lawrence waxes lyrical over “glory roses hung in the morning sunshine like little bowls of fire tipped up”.

There’s Saki, O Henry (who describes a woman as “graceful as a spray of clematis”) and Nathaniel Hawthorne.

All the ones you’d expect to find – excerpts from The Secret Garden and Rebecca – and others that are a pleasant new discovery.

In Blue Poppies by Jane Gardam, for instance, a lady knows the botanical names of the plants in a garden she visits. She and the owner of the garden have a jolly old time, discussing names of their personal favourites.

“Meconopsis Baileyi,” said my mother.

“Yes.”

“Betonicifolia.”

“Give me Camanula carpatica, said the Duchess.

“Ah! Or Gentiana verna angulosa,” said my mother. “We sound as if we’re saying our prayers.”

Exactly how many gardeners feel – that they are one with a greater presence.