Rex...Rex...Rex...Rex tremendae majestatis

I've been having a run of luck lately with houseplants (meaning: I haven't killed them—yet). Somewhere, a distant (cow)bell tolls for the Norfolk pines, Boston ferns, Phaelonopsis orchids, and Areca palms (et al.) who have met their untimely ends in my home. Today's survivors: a tough-as-nails tricolor dracaena; a two-year old trailing abutilon (I did not know jack about plants when I got it at a plant sale, but was thrilled to learn later that it is a malva. One of these days I'll move my indoor malva to a place where it will actually get some, y'know, light, and perhaps it will flower for me. In the meantime, I'll just enjoy its velvety lobed leaves); an African violet that is re-blooming its head off (plant food, a southern window exposure, plastic pot, and pebbles with water in the cache pot seem to be doing the trick); a former Chamber-of-Commerce-dinner table centerpiece with sweet potato vine 'Marguerite', licorice plant, and single-flowered impatiens (this container planting is almost a year old, and is a good example of three shades of green foliage that Do Not Play Well Together, but it keeps chugging along—its very survival is quite the novelty); a burgundy leaved oxalis with the prettiest pink flowers (very happy in the south window); an alocasia with dramatically marbled, dark green, shiny leaves with burgundy undersides, happy enough to have thrown up a short-lived inflorescence this past week (from Wal-Mart, people!); and, saving the best for last, my rex begonia...its leaves are the color of green tea ice cream, deeply veined and bordered in a deep wine color, reminiscent of a heuchera on steroids. And to think that my eyes used to glaze over when reading descriptions of the begonia tribe. (Begonia...what a homely name! Tuberous, wax, fibrous, rex...who can keep them all straight anyway?) Now, of course, I cannot get enough of them. This rex is so dramatic that, yes, the title to this post, from Mozart's Requiem, really does peal through my head every time I look at it. Now, I was feeling a combination of silly, sacrilegious and disrespectful about that until this past weekend, when I had the great misfortune of hearing the Lacrimosa used as background music in a television commercial for a "toilet that never needs plunging". To which I can only say: "Quantus tremor est futurus / quando judex est venturus / cuncta stricte discussurus! [Great trembling there will be / when the Judge descends from heaven / to examine all things closely!]" I do not want to be there for that conversation.

Comments

[Ann Boyer]

What a GREAT website! I'm definitely coming back.
And having just seen the toilet commercial of which you spoke, I second your comments. Loved your screed.

Looking forward to future visits to your website!

Ann Boyer ( a retired medical librarian in Madison, WI)

[Chan S.]

Hi, Ann, and thanks for the compliments! I don't know how many Ann Boyers there are in Madison, so I have to ask...are you the Ann I know from John Muir? (I'm James' mom.)

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