Right now I have two house plants a jade and a Christmas cactus. Both of these plants were brought here and abandoned by my mother. I had no choice in the matter, she brought them to my house one at a time and insisted that I needed them, quite honestly I think she just wanted to be rid of them and I was the closest unsuspecting victim. This would be one of the hazards of having your mother living on your property. The fact that both of these plants have managed to stay alive is a miracle in itself but for some reason these two plants seem to love it here in my house. The jade actually BLOOMS, yes you read that right, it blooms, how or why....I have no idea. Not only has it survived my lack of plant care skills, but it also survived an attack from a crazy cat(Read the story here). Other then the one time the jade did bloom, it just sits there collecting dust, shedding leaves and begging for water every now and then. After it's leaves look shriveled and pathetic I'm guilted into giving it some water so it doesn't croak.
The Christmas cactus, now that is a different story. That plant and I have a very unique relationship. Since as I've mentioned already, I am not good at taking care of plants in fact you would safely assume that I seriously SUCK, this plant is just flat out lucky to be alive. The first couple of weeks that I had it I of course did not water it at all, the only attention I ever gave it was to grimace at it and complain about the mess it makes and the space it occupies. I finally was guilted into watering the danged thing by my husband who was complaining about all of the brown leaves on it. Of course since it hadn't been watered in several days I watered it a LOT, one week later the plant was completely covered with hundreds of blooms. Every year, about 4 times each year that plant puts out more blooms then the Oregon Rose Garden and I get thousands of compliments on the plant and praised for my flowering skills. Bwwahahahaha, little do they know! Anyway, they always ask me the same question - How do you get that plant to bloom so heavily so many times per year? My answer is simple; I have it on the shock and awe program. I shock it with water, it awes me with flowers. HA!
So, all of the photos in today's entry are courtesy of me (of course) and my Christmas Cactus that is currently in the awe stage. Actually, I was watching an educational DVD on my camera, photography and photoshop and picked on the plant while trying to learn how to get macro shots. Although the photos are nice, they are not at all what I was after, I was trying to focus solely on the stamen of the plant and have everything else blurred out. Obviously I still have a lot to learn about spot focusing and metering. **sigh**
Never fear though, I still learned some new tricks.
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