Welcome to the Great Houseplant Census of 2010.* The impetus behind the census is that one evening, my Very Indulgent Spouse ( VIS ) looked around the kitchen and family room and commented, "Wow, you have a lot of houseplants." I denied it immediately, and reminded him of how I've been frequently guilty of the involuntary plantslaughter of houseplants. For contrast, I described to him Elizabeth Licata's "plant room." VIS asked how many plants she has, which got me wondering how many houseplants everyone has. It also made me realize that I had no idea how many indoor plants I have. And so, the plant census was born.
The definition of "houseplant" that I choose is very broad: any plant indoors now that is alive. This includes not only traditional houseplants, but plants brought inside for the winter, forced bulbs, holiday gift plants, seedlings and so on.
Despite my record of dead plants, I'm doing surprisingly well at keeping plants alive this winter. First, the saddest of the sad, the African Violets and a Kalanchoe.
The K alachoe has been in the house for a year, the African Violets a few months (the other two African Violets look just as pathetic). Count so far, 4.
Here's a much happier group:
One very large Pelargonium given to me during the summer of 2008 by a friend who had it in her bathroom, but didn't want it anymore; one Coleus grown from a cutting taken last fall; two Oxalis which were divisions of a plant grown in a container outdoors last summer, one of which is in bloom (shock, amazement) one in bud; one Fuchsia grown in the garden last summer brought indoors and potted up. It also, amazingly, has buds. In the lantern is one of the sad little African Violets which has already been accounted for. So that's five more for a total of 9.
Next group:
One Amaryllis in full bloom, and two Cacti that VIS gave me 15 years ago. Yes, I can grow Cacti! Running total: an even dozen.
Finally, one pot of forced bulbs. I could count that as one, but the pot contains three 'Lydia' Tulips and one 'Blue Jacket' Hyacinth, so I'm counting that as a total of 4 plants.
Grand total = 15 indoor plants, a huge increase from the mere two I had two years ago. So, how many indoor plants do you have?
*You can either just leave the number in a comment, or, you can post about your indoor plants. Consequently, I decided not to do Mr. Linky. I nstead, leave a direct link in a comment. Here's how: because typing the exact code into this post would automatically make it a link, I'm substituting ( ) for <> for demonstrative purposes. Type the following into the comment, using <> and substituting your relevant information.