Well Chief, It's Certainly Cheaper Than The Alternative

During our recent trip to New Mexico we enjoyed looking at a few homes for sale in the Ruidoso area.  Now there is nothing The Chief and I like better than looking at homes.  He loves to see all of the possibilities for remodeling and/or improvements, and I like to look at people's stuff and how they've decorated.
Don't worry.  I don't (usually) touch any of their belongings or anything - just look.

One of the homes that we toured was a quaint cabin tucked into a hillside.  The architecture was great - pride of ownership was immediately evident.  The decor was woodsy and comfortable, yet fresh and sophisticated.  It was quite obvious that the occupants were active, busy, and creative. We happened to meet one of the owners (the husband of the retired couple) and he was great to share with us a little history of his home.  As a long-time employee of the oil business, they had lived all over the world, collected art pieces and objects from across the globe and tastefully displayed all of these things in their home.  What caught my eye immediately was the kitchen.  A high-end stove got me excited right off the bat.  Then I almost swooned when I saw her collection of Le Creuset cookware.  I'm telling you the lady had more pieces of it than I've EVER seen displayed in Sur la Table!

All colors - just beautiful!

I immediately liked this lady.

Then I noticed her plants.  She had houseplants everywhere.  And not just houseplants stuck on windowsills in little plastic pots.  Not plants that looked droopy and neglected.  Each one of the plants was in an earthenware or ceramic pot that were art pieces themselves.  Each plant appeared to have been groomed and care for that very morning.  And these were not plants recently purchased to improve the "sellability" of this house.  These were unusual species, collector plants, and display specimen.  Many of them were succulents (after all, we were in New Mexico!) with unusual shapes, intriguing textures and bright blooms.

I was smitten.

I found an area near the garage where she obviously did most of her work on the plants - there was compost and buckets of water with egg-shells steeping for a "compost tea" fertilizer.  There were cuttings being rooted and all sorts of new little sprouts coming up.  I loved all the shapes and unusual forms of the cacti.

I wanted some.

I even went so far as to ask the owner if the house was being sold with the plants (oh, and the Le Creuset, by the way) - he chuckled and told me I'd have to ask "the wife" and then The Chief elbowed me hard in the ribs...

Anyway, last week I started missing that ladies' plants.  And her cookware.  And since I quickly deduced that it would be easier to start out by buying a few plants similar to hers (the Le Creuset would immediately and dangerously register on The Chief's radar), I decided to start my own little succulent "garden."


I mean 'what the hey'- it hasn't rained around here in years, right?

We're practically smack dab in the middle of a desert.

I planted:

Baby Toes (Fenestraria aurantiaca) -  from the deserts of South Africa.  Each "toe" has a translucent window on the end through which sunlight is filtered.

Split Rock (Pleiospilos nelii) - Also native to Africa, the succulent leaves form a clefted "egg-shape".

Green Coral (Euphorbia flanaganii cristata) - This African native is a "medusoid" type plant which has a central base with arms arising from that base.

And pretty yellow blooms!

Rainbow Elephant Bush (Portulacaria afra "Variegata") - a drought tolerant relative of our common Moss Rose.

Zebra Plant (Haworthia fasciata) - an upright grower with leaves covered with white raised "pearls" that connect to form bands similar to zebra stripes.  It's completely dormant in summer and does it's growing in winter.

If we ever have a winter, that is.

 Anacampseros rufescens - a plant with fleshy leaves that turn purple in bright light.  It has pink flowers on the end of long stalks.

Old Lady Cactus (Mammillaria hahniana) - Appropriately named, I think, this Mexican native grows globular stems that can be up to 6 inches in diameter.  The stems are densely covered with short white hair and short white spines.  I think any women over say, 45 can relate when looking in a magnifying mirror...

:(

And by the way - the spines are quite prickly and painful.

I wore gloves, but somehow ended up with some of the spines in my abdomen - long story...

I've placed them all in a shallow pot and used potting soil recommended for cacti.

I'll let you know how they're getting along.



Does anyone else out there like succulents?
Or for that matter Le Creuset?

Will you sell them to me with your house?

Lu

Oh, and P.S. - You don't want to miss tomorrow- all about the start of college football and dip.

It's gonna be DipTacular.