Variegated Anthurium Snake Oil

 My anthurium collection is for me. Just me.

What anthurium traits do I love the most? It depends on the moment.

This week, my favorite plant is my new Anthurium Snake Oil, Variegated (Black Widow x Michelle) X (Papillilaminum x Magnificum), that I’ve had for 19 whole days. I bid for one on an auction in the Anthurium Addicts Facebook group and lost. But, the seller reached out with another plant and I snapped it up. I had it shipped through UPS overnight, but it got stuck an extra day in shipping. Not ideal in the winter weather but it happens.

The plant arrived expertly wrapped with a used up heating pad and the plant was alive. It was cold to the touch, but alive. And a week later it pushed off a new emergent living up the claim that it is a vigorous plant. You might not know it yet, but you really need an Anthurium Snake Oil in your collection. 

The Anthurium Snake Oil 1.0 was bred by Connor Burgal, (Burgal Flowering Farmstead) and owned by Jiggy Plant Guy, before an offset was given to the collector that I purchased it from. 

So, why do I love it? It has an orange emergent leaf with black sectoral variegation. It is unique, vigorous, and gorgeous. A living piece of art to be treasured.

P.S. If you’re interested in buying the 2.0 version, PhytoRot Plant Co. will be selling more this next year. You can also find them on the Palmstreet app for live auctions.

Sparkle Like an Anthurium Red Crystal Blush

In fourth grade, collecting stickers was a huge fad and I knew kids that had photo albums filled with them. They were ‘collectors’. I had one small humble half sheet sized album that held my stickers. I chose ones with sparkles around the edges and as a young gymnast that was often mistaken as a boy, the stickers made me feel girly and giddy. 

One afternoon, I accidentally forgot my small sticker album at a friend’s house and she decided to ‘improve’ my stickers by cutting all of the sparkly edges off of them. She had ruined my collection and I threw them away. No more sparkles for me. 

Until now.

Anthurium Red Crystal Blush F1 bred by Lindsay Sisti

Now, I’m feeling giddy at the pink and silver sparkles on my Anthurium Red Crystal Blush F1. The vivid emergent is cute, but becomes special as it fills out. And the hardened off leaf looks classy like a black velvet cocktail dress with the right flourish of jewelry.

Lindsay Sisti at All the Plant Babies has bred a masterpiece and you can find them available for purchase on her website, www.alltheplantbabies.com. 

Because it’s never too late to sparkle.

Let’s Begin

 

Anthurium carlablackiae from NSE Tropicals

If we are lucky, there are many love stories in our lives. The people we love, pets, hobbies, making art, and our calling. I’ve never felt a calling to one thing, it’s always been to everything. To me, life is a buffet to be sampled. In my outdoor garden, I want to grow everything: to try all of the plants. And I know that I’m doing a good job because nursery owners know my name and are always happy to see me (and my credit card).

For this reason, I’ve always envied gardeners that loved a specific genus of plants. I ask them to give me a blow by blow of how they fell in love with their favorite plants. I watch their eyes go misty as they detail the first clematis they purchased with the wrong plant tag and how that led to a nationally accredited display garden. And I hang on every word. Every damn time.

I cannot tell you how many times I’ve wished for my favorite genus to finally reveal itself to me, to feel the pull and fascination towards one type of plants. I have searched and searched, hoping that the next plant would be the one. I’ve gone to great ends to find it.

I volunteered for many years as a master gardener, trained master gardeners, taught gardening classes for the community college’s community education program, garden coached, wrote several different garden blogs, and won different awards. None of it leading to my dream genus.

No, it took a surgeon seriously looking into my eyes and warning me that I had an internal injury (from gardening) that could kill me at any time and that lifting over 15 pounds would definitely kill me. “You shouldn’t be alive right now,” he said confidently. 

I hated him immediately, but also believed him. And so, I’ve been working through my What I Want To Do, Just In Case I die List, as I lose the necessary weight before my repair surgery this winter. Yes, the surgeon scared me and put me on a diet; we will never be friends. 

With the fifteen pound lifting limit and the political nightmare that took over this country, I turned to indoor container gardening. And that little red blooming IKEA anthurium was a gateway plant that has  changed my life. I tried looking up a book on anthurium care at the library and found, Welcome to the Jungle by Enid Offolter.  

And here I sit, writing to you 10 months later, with 95 anthurium species in my collection. I found my genus! It happened for me. My wish finally came true. This blog is my love letter to anthuriums and the journey to successfully select, purchase, and grow them. There are over 1000 species, so I’m going to be busy growing them for a long time. Let’s begin.