Botanic Note:
Trop de gens
7 June 2018
At the florist’s across from Agata & Valentina, I bought a caladium, along with two more geraniums, for the balcony.
I had bought three geraniums nearly a month ago, but the cold weather and my low spirits kept them in their little plastic pots, blowing over in the wind and nearly drying out. I’ll put all five plants in the urn that I ordered when we refurnished the balcony upstairs (hardly knowing how soon we’d have to leave it behind). For years, I replanted it with the same White Flower Farm annuals — exotic coleus and begonia plants. They weren’t expensive, but, this year, I just wasn’t in the mood (and Kathleen dislikes coleus), so I decided to fill the urn with geraniums, or, as the guy in the department store in Born to Dance says, “perlargoniums to you.” (No, of course, that’s not what he says.)
I have always liked caladiums, but I long ago learned not to truck with them. Now I’ve forgotten why — and I’ve bought one. I suppose I’ll find what the problem is soon enough, but I’m sure that it has nothing to do with what I just found out. Because the spell-check disapproved of my spelling, I had to look up caladiums on Google (I was right about the spelling), where I learned that they are better known, Heaven forgive us, as Heart of Jesus.
Words fail.