good morning!
It’s quite amazing. Just a week ago there was nary a sign that I would see another flower shoot forth from Planty. But today I am staring at a wonderful looking offshoot, about halfway down the primary stem.
The above quote is from the seventh edition in The Orchid Tales, published 26 October 2023.
Today, on 16 January 2024, your hoddler-in-chief can report four luscious purple blooms have blossomed from his orchid, otherwise known as Planty.
It’s been almos two years since I first brough Planty into my Alrington, Virginia, home. It remarkably survived its first season, bringing a new stem and six gorgeous flowers with it.
And it survived what must have been a traumatic move to the District of Columbia, with an apartment window that faces east-south-east. Planty is faced just outside of direct sunlight, vits emerald green leaves shimmying away from the sunlight. Its veritcal roots swaying in the night.
These gorgeous, velvety lavendar blooms – this wondrous orchid – first greeted me when I returned from California on the eve of New Year’s Eve, 2023. Only blossom remained tantatisingly clamped. A few days later, it revealed itself.
And, wow, is it a beauty to behold.
This industrious orchid will not win any awards from The American Orchid Society. Its pot – plastic, slitted and transparent – is, in a word, utilitarian. Its roots wayward. Its body unevent. Its leaves? Odd-numbered. But we love a prime number here art Carty Free Estates.
Planty is thriving. As the snow falls on the mid-Atlantic tundra, Planty looks out at its window and beckons towards the sunlight. Forget the frosty, turgid gray, for there is a plethora a life behind it. You just have to look for it.
And Planty, Planty has found it.
Fitzie’s track of the day: Tumbling Dice, by Little Dragon
And now for your links:
Dan KP: Daniel Levy’s long game for Tottenham is about to pay off
The Athletic ($$) asks if Harry Kane can break Lewandowski’s Bundesliga record
Why the new Premier League’s new domestic TV deal is a ‘warning’
Eni Aluko ‘genuinely scared’ after online abuse