I reorganized the sun porch because of Carolyn Hol’s two-sentence phone message, asking if I had any more of those “purple plants that look like orchids” for sale. A friend whose plant she had admired had told her it came from me.When I returned Carolyn’s call, I asked if she meant the plants with long green leaves and purple flowers on even longer stems.
She did.
“Ah. . . that’s streptocarpus, you want,” I said. We laughed. “Sounds like a disease, doesn’t it?” I said.
I told her I didn’t know about their relationship to orchids, but they were cousins of African violets.
“I have been neglecting them,” I said. “I’ll check what I have and call you back.”
I had moved them from the basement grow light to the sun porch a month ago and knew they were languishing. When I checked, I was shocked—many of them looked seriously ill—as did their cousins.
Most plants love the sunny sauna in the porch, but apparently not streptocarpus.
I decided to move them to the adjoining air-conditioned living room. But the sunroom futon shaded one-third of the glass block wall between the two rooms. The plants would need more light.
I moved the futon to expose the glass blocks to the sun, and put the wicker chairs there instead. The love seat replaced the wicker chairs, and the futon replaced the love seat. It was fruit basket upset—without the party or the laughter. Now the weeping fig and philodendron needed new locations, and leaves dropped around me as I sweated and tugged.. The ceramic tiles screamed for mopping. The rugs begged for vacuuming. The violets and streptos needed pruning before their move to the living room.
Finally, I called Carolyn. I had some streptos. “Not show-perfect, but okay,” I said. She’ll stop in soon.
A simple phone call two days ago triggered a major overhaul to the sun room.
The overhaul really started two years ago when I sold the strepto that prompted Carolyn’s phone call.
No, it started three years ago when I experimented with propagating them from leaves.
No, no, the triggering moment was four years ago when I discovered streptos while web surfing. “Relatives of the African violet,” the site said. “But they bloom more readily.”
Given a little time, I could have traced that first cause right to Adam and Eve and the fig leaves.
But I didn’t. I showered and enjoyed the air-conditioned living room, along with the plant cousins.
I wilt in sunny saunas, too.
It runs in the family.
