TINZ: Episcia Piss On Ya

Envy, pure and simple, is what made me get this infernal plant. Knitty Kitty has a pot full of lush, shiny, bushy episcia--the same kind that our mother used to have. After acquiring and killing one cultivar after another, it finally became obvious that although they sort of looked like it, they are not coleus. It is an insult to all coleus plants the world over to be compared with this termagant. After a year and a half trying to cultivate episcias in a pot, it is clear now that the best way to keep them looking perfect is to leave them alone in the tropical jungle whence they came. 

I don't get it.

TINZ: Black Bat Flower Plant (Tacca chantrieri)

This is what this plant is supposed to look like.
WikiMedia Commons, Photo by Réginald Hulhoven,

Is it even possible to resist getting a plant that blooms like this? If you have a coffin-size container that you can put in a bright shade where you can keep humidity above 60 percent and temperature above 25C for most part of the year, then by all means, get one.

I have one of these magnificent plants, except mine is majorly pathetic. At any one time, it manages to sustain no more than three leaves that are always brown and brittle at the tips. It melts when kept moist, then dries up when kept dry. There is a magic point of perfection that it demands, having taken millions of years to evolve its techniques for surviving its natural habitat. But whatever or wherever this magical point is, it has not revealed itself in the last two years I have had it.

Rareflora provided a short and concise instruction for how to care for this plant and at the very bottom of the article it said, almost as an afterthought, that they would not "recommend this plant for a beginner in search of low maintenance plants." Too late for that, it's already here. Since it has not had the manners to die in a decisive fashion, it can not just be tossed out (although that's been done to it too, and it survived). Going into its second year in Zone 7, the 40th Parallel, the plant is largely unchanged in size and girth.