Mad Cook
Master Chef
(That's the title of a comic song from the 1930s performed by Gracie Fields)
I think I might have a candidate for "The Guinness Book of Records"!
In my kitchen I have an Aspidistra plant. It is descended from my great-great-grandmother's plant, from cuttings handed down through the family. I would love to add a photo here but haven't got the equipment. I received her as a 3 leaf cutting about 20+ years ago. For years it lived in my warm bathroom at the old house and did nothing - a old leaf would die and a new one would replace it.
When I came to live here, 8 years ago, I brought her and her 3 leaves with me and put her in the unheated kitchen (sometimes, in winter, frozen chickens de-frost quicker the 'fridge than on the work surface!!) at which she "spat on her hands and took fresh hold", as they say up here in the north of England, and started to grow. And grow. And grow. In all directions!
She is now in a pot that I can barely lift, by north- and west-facing windows, in the kitchen and her longest leaf is half an inch short of 40 inches! Her grandmother (who belonged to my maternal grandmother) was a variegated variety but none of her cuttings ever threw out a variegated "child" until this one who has both plain green and variegated leaves.
She's called "Molly Ellen" after my late, favourite aunt, who owned my plant's mother and my grandmother. I don't usually name my plants but this one has such a heritage that I think she deserves one.
(I was tempted to put this in "Our Pets" as she almost qualifies.)
I think I might have a candidate for "The Guinness Book of Records"!
In my kitchen I have an Aspidistra plant. It is descended from my great-great-grandmother's plant, from cuttings handed down through the family. I would love to add a photo here but haven't got the equipment. I received her as a 3 leaf cutting about 20+ years ago. For years it lived in my warm bathroom at the old house and did nothing - a old leaf would die and a new one would replace it.
When I came to live here, 8 years ago, I brought her and her 3 leaves with me and put her in the unheated kitchen (sometimes, in winter, frozen chickens de-frost quicker the 'fridge than on the work surface!!) at which she "spat on her hands and took fresh hold", as they say up here in the north of England, and started to grow. And grow. And grow. In all directions!
She is now in a pot that I can barely lift, by north- and west-facing windows, in the kitchen and her longest leaf is half an inch short of 40 inches! Her grandmother (who belonged to my maternal grandmother) was a variegated variety but none of her cuttings ever threw out a variegated "child" until this one who has both plain green and variegated leaves.
She's called "Molly Ellen" after my late, favourite aunt, who owned my plant's mother and my grandmother. I don't usually name my plants but this one has such a heritage that I think she deserves one.
(I was tempted to put this in "Our Pets" as she almost qualifies.)
