Jasmine on my mind

March came into Washington as neither a lamb nor a lion.  It came on little cat feet.  Grey followed by more, well, white and grey.  Throughout the neighborhood, daffodils are in bloom (or at least flaunting a little bright yellow).  Unfortunately, my yard runs 3-4 weeks behind most of my neighbors (I’m caught in some strange microclimate here.)  Add a couple of inches of snow and I’m confined to indoor gardening for now.  A lush spot of green or a blast of a fragrant plant can keep me going.   But I live with a major limitation, two of them in fact.  Their names are Lionel and Marmalade and they cannot be trusted. 

 

The forbidden list of plants toxic to cats is long and enticing: sago palms, cyclamen, amaryllis, kalanchoe...  Those pretty, cheap house plants at Trader Joe’s?  They’re almost always a no-go.  (We won’t even get into the cut flowers – the fatally beautiful lily…)

But, nature gives the cat lover a few breaks.  The gardenia, temperamental though it may be, has glossy foliage, velvet blossoms and a spell-binding fragrance.  I have struck a bargain with my gardenias, as I have with most of my plants.  They make it through the winter, I let them spend the summer outside.  That doesn’t mean that my gardenias won’t turn on me and die for no apparent reason.  (If you have an interest in gardenia, or simply difficult houseplants, you might enjoy GardenWeb’s infamous suicidal gardenia thread http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/calif/2004035908004767.html )  But a single blossom in the winter season pays their keep.

(Needless to say, this is not a photo of my gardenia; no gardenia would be so cooperative as to bloom on demand.  Credit goes to russavia, via Wikipedia.)

 

Another blooming plant that is safe, sightly and a bit tougher: the Thanksgiving or Christmas cactus, both cultivars of Schlumbergera.  This was given to me by grandmother almost 20 years ago.

 

 

African violets are another safe bet.  The giver of this African violet described it as a weedy version of flower shop varieties; it’s a generous repeat bloomer, as the catalogs say. I can tell that it is trying to escape its pot, perhaps even my house, but I love it nonetheless, especially those translucent blossoms.

 

Of course, God’s greatest gift to cat lovers is the orchid.  They are extraordinarily beautiful.  Currently, there are white, pink, apricot, yellow and one variegated purple orchid around my house (all from grocery stores!)

 

 

They are a decorator’s dream, as long as you aren’t planning on seeing any blooms for a year or two.

 

And last, but by no means least, the extravagantly scented jasmine.  Mine bloomed its heart out for two glorious weeks.  Every time I came into the room, I stopped momentarily and wondered why there was perfume in the air.  Clearly, I wasn’t the only one enjoying it.