Desperation

After the rush of Christmas and with a new year knocking on the door, the gardening sap is beginning to rise and I have itchy feet and tingly green fingers.  I want to eat up the remains of the Christmas cake, sort out my seed box and burn off those excess calories outdoors.  I am looking up and down the flower beds for signs of bulbs poking through the soil and scanning shrubs in the hope of finding tight, new buds.  I also want to cut down the autumn fruiting raspberries and harvest the rest of the parsnips.  Oh, I know there is a long way to go yet (the white stuff!) but I just have to have something to look forward to when the shiny baubles and prickly holly wreaths have been put away. 

Yesterday, I headed off down the garden path looking for something inspiring to photograph.  However, to quote my Nanna: “Duck, there’s nowt!”  Currently, the garden is a truly desolate, dreary place.  The ground is as boggy as we have ever known it and the hens will be growing webbed feet soon.  There is not even the slightest sign of vigour, colour or interest.  And, yes, it is still raining and yes, it still gets dark at 4.00 pm in the afternoon.

So back inside the house I washed my gardening fleece and gilet, checked my 2013 vegetable rotation plan for a second time and desperation set in.  Apart from the seasonal poinsettia and cyclamen (both of which I have kept healthy for several weeks now!) the only thing looking at me was the spider plant.

I loathe spider plants.  This one was a mere sprigling in tub of plants given to me as a gift and annoyingly I never seem to be able to consign anything remotely living to the compost heap.  I just had to nurture the spidery element, even though it felt like madness. I think, to be honest, I was hoping my attitude to this popular houseplant, might change.

I should feel nostalgic.  It was one of the first house plants Doc and I acquired and it was probably the first plant I learned how to propagate.  One minute there was a large spidery rosette of stripy green and creamy-yellow foliage and the next there were several spidery babies hanging over the edge of the pot.  I dutifully potted them on, gave some to friends and kept the remainder, who in turn produced their own babies, and so it went on.   I must have grown on a dozen generations of the wretched plant.  They gathered dust, the flowers were so insignificant I nearly missed them and I eventually got very bored indeed.  At one stage, Doc did try to perk up one or two of the spider plants with a natty macramé hanging basket but it did not work.  For me, the spider plant is a boring plant and is in the same stable as boring rubber plants and boring cheese plants.  

Chlorophytum comosum, is possibly the most popular house plant of all time and true, it does have advantages.  It is very good at purifying the air in the home by removing toxins and it can tolerate full sun or part shade. A spider plant even dislikes being watered, likes its roots restricted in a small pot and can withstand low temperatures, eg during the night when the heating goes off.   But all this does not make me love it, even if it is one of the few healthy, living things around me at the moment.

I am wondering if the best place for the spider plant is in a seasonal arrangement.  Maybe I should combine it with some ivy and some colourful spring bulbs.  Maybe the spider plant is all about textural interest rather than horticultural prowess and I need to use it more creatively.  Can anyone out there convince me it is worth loving?  Otherwise I may just have to bite the bullet and creatively put it to good use - in the compost heap where it perhaps can do some good.