Home & Garden Columns

Oh my, this is a touchy time of year, all those cultural sensitivities waiting to be stepped on. Wishing someone “happy holidays” would seem universal enough, but I read a newswire piece the other day in which a guy was quoted as bragging that he’d bullied some hapless WalMart clerk into wiping that phrase off a window because, “It’s supposed to be ‘Merry Christmas!’” Honestly, sometimes it makes me miss good old Saturnalia.  

But worse traps await the holiday gift-giver. 

You’d think I’d’ve known better, but I stepped in the droppings bigtime some years back when I gave my mother-in-law a plant for her room. The bright places by the window were already filled, and I thought she needed something green in a spot that didn’t get much light.  

I thought I had the perfect idea, inspired by my own beloved Grammy Adams who’d always had a couple of big snake plants in the downstairs parlor. 

I’d developed a fondness for Sanseveria species after seeing them as curbside plantings in Honolulu, and I knew they were tough, not choosy about light, and easy to care for. 

What I didn’t know, or had forgotten, was that in some regions they’re called “mother-in-law’s tongue” and that’s a diss on mothers-in-law, as the plant is indeed tongue-shaped if the tongue is long and sharp. (Plus, it’s green. Ew.) 

Why of course my mother-in-law was from one such region, and she’d never heard of another name for the plant. Oops.  

I have to credit her patience, nevertheless. The plant survived her, and it’s on the hereditary sideboard in our dining room now – next to my snake Shep. I put a shorter Sanseveria species in the cage with him and he hasn’t squashed it flat yet; in fact, it’s given me two offsets to plant elsewhere. 

That’s one tough plant. I’d suggest it as a holiday gift to anyone but your mother-in-law. Just persuade them not to over-water.  

Lots of those granny plants are tough, which is probably why they’re granny plants. It’s a good idea to give a plant that’s not likely to die and leave the new owner feeling all incompetent and depressed.  

Grammy Adams had a few other plants in that little coal-patch row house, including one upstairs that my dad referred to, singing the British music-hall ditty, as “the biggest asssssssss-phidistra in the world.” 

I’m pretty sure it wasn’t an asphidistra, though, from the story of Poppop Adams’ obligingly unraveling it from the picture rail, on which it clambered all the way around the room, and toting it downstairs to show off to visitors. I think it was a “Devil’s ivy” (Epipremnum) or a pothos (Scindapsus) of some sort, or maybe a heart-leaf philodendron.  

The last two are pretty sturdy and finesse the “Devil’s” superstitions. Asphidistra—“cast-iron plant”—is, as implied, another indomitable houseplant: upright but taller than Sanseveria, dark green. Asphidistra, Sanseveria, and Scindapsus all have lively-looking variegated versions.  

Go on, give one. It’s still less presumptuous than giving a kitten.