It's a Jungle in Here

Call it tradition; call it procrastination���������I never bring my houseplants in until the afternoon of the first day the forecast calls for an overnight frost. This year, that day is one full month after the latest I've brought them in before, ever. It will take me a week or so to get all the saucers in, clean and dry, and to get everybody set up in his winter home.

The bottom image is, I know, spectacularly bad. But I wanted to show off the big, beefy buds on that Christmas���������er, Thanksgiving, I guess���������cactus. Dean's grandmother asked me to adopt it a year ago and it was a pretty sad little bug. I can't resist Christmas cactus. It's one plant I seem to have some sort of finesse with. Now, cyclamen: Please don't give me a cyclamen. (Unless you already have, in which case, thank you, and I'm sorry but it's dead.)

There is something very fresh and wonderful about the way houseplants look when they first come in from their shady summer digs alongside the house. They're so healthy and robust...like a kid who spent the day at the beach and whose mother applied the proper amount of sunscreen. Not fried. Dewey.