my new year’s plant

If there’s a plant that says New Year’s Day to me, it’s the com­mon jade plant, Cras­sula ovata. The rea­son why is a lit­tle embar­rass­ing, and I’m trust­ing you not to tell any­one else.

Grow­ing up, my fam­ily would spend the morn­ing of New Year’s Day gath­ered around the tele­vi­sion set­ting, watch­ing the Rose Parade. Over­taken by mis­guided jags of inspi­ra­tion, I’d make my own lit­tle parade floats out of lit­tle card­board boxes and what­ever flow­ers were available.

jadeflowers

My fam­ily lived in the same val­ley as Pasadena, though inland a few miles. The two loca­tions essen­tially shared the same cli­mate pro­file, some­thing around Zone 9B. Don’t believe the pro­pa­ganda about the Pasadena area hav­ing gar­gan­tuan fields of roses bloom­ing every­where in Jan­u­ary. Yes, you’ll find roses, but not in the same num­ber as other flowers.

Instead, at my par­ents’, the plant that was depend­ably cov­ered with flow­ers on New Year’s was the jade plant. They had a cou­ple plants in the back yard that were about as tall as I was, and they sup­plied more than enough lit­tle starry white flow­ers to com­pletely cover my artis­tic creations.

jadeplant

Now, all grown up, I have a jade in the front yard. This year, with the bizarrely warm fall we had, the plant was con­fused and started bloom­ing in Novem­ber. Here’s how it looked yes­ter­day. Not totally cov­ered in flow­ers, but with plenty of flow­ers to go around–unless some­one needs to build a major float.

So, with that photo, let me wish you a happy New Year’s! May 2009 bring you piles of flow­ers and inter­est­ing plants and good times with peo­ple who care deeply for you!

January 01 2009 12:01 am | Categories: gardening • my garden | Tags: • • • •

7 Responses to “my new year’s plant”

  1. easygardener on 01 Jan 2009 at 3:47 am #

    The plant isn’t hardy here but I have one I over­win­ter in the green­house. It flow­ered about 10 years ago and never again.
    I never even took a pic­ture, not real­is­ing it was a spe­cial occa­sion :-)

  2. Linda Barnhart on 01 Jan 2009 at 9:11 am #

    And the same to you, Jim! If you ever want/need more jade plants, I have plenty to share. Mine is not yet as fully in bloom as yours, however.

  3. Helen - patientgardener on 01 Jan 2009 at 10:55 am #

    Happy New Year James and Best wishes for 2009

  4. Karen - An Artists Garden on 01 Jan 2009 at 12:51 pm #

    I promise that I wont tell any­one the rea­son why the Jade plant says New Years Day to you, but I did enjoy you shar­ing it :)
    Have A good 2009
    Warm regards
    Karen

  5. tina on 01 Jan 2009 at 3:14 pm #

    And a Happy New Year to you! It is a lovely, lovely plant. I never even knew jade plants bloomed:)

  6. lostlandscape on 01 Jan 2009 at 3:57 pm #

    Thanks for the wishes, every­one! It was fun shar­ing one of the plants that shares some his­tory with me…

    Easy­gar­dener and Tina, blooms on these are com­mon in the cli­mates where they sur­vive out­doors, but I can’t say that I’ve ever seen blooms on jades that I’ve grown indoors. Maybe it’s a lack of strong light?

  7. Mr.Kitsbeagle on 01 Apr 2009 at 6:11 am #

    nice meet­ing peo­ple who love cras­sula ovata.I have two enor­mous exem­plar­ies of over 50 years old i herited.They are easy, of a total design structure.Indoor in win­ter and from may until late okto­ber out­side.
    Hope to hear from you all, leav­ing you my web­site, the site of my band in fact and my email.By
    Mr.Kitsbeagle(belgium)

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