philosophy?

I'm a retired chemist. I saw a weird plant thirty years ago and it led to the group of plants known as the bromeliads. I started "collecting" them from commercial sources simply because they were so unusual. And there are many facets to this unusualness! So when I see a new one I want it because I want to see what it looks like when it blooms. I usually have little idea about what kind of environment it wants so sometimes I buy two and put them in different places. The one that looks rather poorly gets moved, hopefully to a better place. Eventually most of them bloom. When they do, I photograph the entire plant and do a closeup of the flower and put them on my page (temporarily off line).
After it has bloomed I may lose a bit of interest in that plant. In at least one case, I had a very unusual plant and grew it through the seed phase. It was interesting to watch the inflorescence developp when I had no idea what to expect. But it was not particularly pretty. Bromeliads as a rule bloom only once. They can be reproduced from seed but usually by pups. This plant had two pups. When separated, I gave one to the original owner. And since it was not one of the "spectacular" ones I felt it belonged in a research collection so I sent it to the U. of Vienna Botanical Garden and it pleases me to think that a plant of mine is growing in a Botanical Garden in Austria!
I'm not only acquisitive but I'm a clutterbug. So I have plants all over. My wife is a neat freak and once in awhile she changes things around to "arrange" them in a more pleasing way. I don't mind and I do admit that it always looks better but that really isn't important to me.
Visitors usually ooh and ahh whichever time they come. And my reasoning is always a kind of dumb rationalization that these are generally jungle plants so I don't mind if it looks like a jungle!
The point of this is that this list can accomdate anyone who likes plants. And there are many ways of liking them. One can like the individuals or one can like the aggregate effect of a well arranged group of individuals. I like both but I admit I look at them as individual friends. My wife prefers the aggregate effect. So what, we get along anyway.
Stop by and I'll share them with you! ---Chas---
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It's possible to disagree without being disagreeable.
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Charles E. Dills 1371 Avalon San Luis Obispo CA 93405
[Mac] cdills@charter.net 805-544-1731 cdills@fix.net
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I can be forgetful. If I fail to do something I promised, tell me!
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