Stairwell Garden I

        When plants live with newly weds...




After Kip and I were married last year I started to crave plants.  

I know, weird.

Not as weird as how much I suddenly wanted a cat.

Last week might have cured me of that when I sat on a couch at work and was instantly covered in white cat hair, all over. I think I'll stick to outside cats.  Ahem, back to the plant craving.

Anyway, I have suddenly become that lady, you know the one, who spends fifteen minutes looking through the pots that she knows she can't afford.  The one who likes to end every trip to the store by looking through their garden section and asking her husband what he thought of this, and that.  There were a few times when Kip just nodded as I pleaded the case for this flower, or that plant, and against our budget's will brought a small one home.   

Home right now is a small apartment that gets very little light, except in the morning.  We have two glass french doors as our entry (which I love because they are all window) and then a small cement stairwell that leads us to the land of the living.  I started this spring to colonize this stairwell.  Ambitiously I bought some bulbs that were supposed to bloom in July!  I did buy them at All-A-Dollar though, which would probably explain why only one bloomed.  The college nursery was selling plants at a low price and I purchased - 1) A Geranium, bright red. 

 2) A beautiful purple Dahlia that I should have taken a picture of.  3) A pink flower that has bloomed for the last five months...even though I dropped it on it's head a few weeks ago during my first "Re-pot your plants" session.  She is angry at having lost a good portion of herself, but still blooming.  4) And were given about eighty small flowers for free that I think are called "Celia?"  (Lorien?)  which I didn't like very much when they came along.

That began my stairwell garden.