Simple Pleasures: Green growing things (a.k.a. houseplants)

Meet Rex. Rex has been with me in one form or another for four or five years. My husband and kids call Rex "the ugly plant," but I think she is incredibly gorgeous, especially when the sun strikes her in certain ways.

I have my friend Jocelyne to thank for introducing me to her a few years ago. I had never seen anything like her, but she was sitting in Jocelyne's window with sunlight shimmering on her fuzzy leaves, and I was drawn to her shapes and colours as though she was a magnet. Pictures just don't do her justice. 

I asked Jocelyne if she would give me a cutting, and she promised me that when the time was right, she would share some of her plant's progeny. And here we are, maybe five years later.

What's funny is that I didn't know Rex's official name until yesterday. When people (who are not my family members and have no biases against Rex) visited and commented on her beauty, I would inevitably ask them if they could identify my plant. No one could.

So yesterday, I finally solved the mystery. I web-searched "houseplants with purple veins." No go. I tried "purple-veined houseplants with long stemmed leaves." That got me a little closer. I tried "plants with red markings." I don't remember what finally worked, but eventually I found a picture of a plant similar to mine, and that led me to a whole page about Rex Begonias, which vary in colour and size. 

My mom grows beautiful flowering begonias every summer -- you'd think I might have recognized the shape of Rex's leaves as similar to Mom's plants! But Rex has never bloomed, though apparently she can put out small flowers if conditions are right. However, according to the webpage, those small flowers can't compete with the beauty of the plant's leaves.

If you haven't yet guessed, houseplants are one of the simple pleasures in my life. A friend of mine recently discovered the joy of green growing things in her home, and she's suddenly the proud mom of over 100 of them because Canadian Tire had a sale! 

I have a quarter that many, accumulated one at a time, many of them gifts, and most are surviving quite nicely, though they are often somewhat neglected during outdoor gardening season. We recently had an annoying fungus gnat infestation, but even that didn't diminish my joy much. (As much as I abhor pesticides, Lee picked up some Dr. Doom pyrethrin powder made from some sort of chrysanthemum compound, and the tiny fly-up-your-nose flies are down to a dull roar once again).

In places where winter is long and dark, houseplants are a simple pleasure that can enliven any room with a spot of colour and better air quality due to plant-filtered oxygen. I used to keep my plants all in one area, afraid I would forget to water somebody, but now they're spread around the house, and I haven't lost anyone yet. Lee has appreciated the plant companions in his work-from-home office during the pandemic, too. He says the air quality is better. 

Not all of my plants have names, but I have named a few that came to me because of special people:

Mary-John (from Lee's Polish grandparents)

Ruthie (from a cutting snitched
from the hospice where her
final journey took place five years ago)

Gaby (my dear Belgian host-dad)

Jay (our youngest)

Lidia (my Italian kaffee-klatsch friend)

and Louis (my father-in-law).

Just so you don't think I'm totally off my rocker, the rest of my plants are nameless, and the ones mentioned above have their names mostly in my head because of the loved ones connected with them. By all rights, Rex's true name is Jocelyne, because I think of her whenever her plant catches my attention. But I am delighted by the name Rex, too, because I've often thought a plant like her may have been around long enough to witness the tyrannosaur's era. She has that look about her, somehow.

Are there plants in your life that bring you joy? It's a question worth thinking about. If you like, send me pictures and I'll share them... The more we can be aware of our Simple Pleasures, the more gratitude floods our lives and reminds us of the good that surrounds us even in these challenging times, and I don't know anyone who can't use more goodness and gratitude. 

Thanks, Jocelyne, for sharing some simple pleasure with me through your Rex Begonia!  Even though I will never convince my family of her beauty, I love this plant, especially when I remember who gave her to me...

Appreciating simple pleasures improves our happiness quotient!