Visiting My Plants at Their New Homes

I was over at Socorro’s today. She lives in the part of Chacala near where I have lived the past three summers. People call this part of town “arriba”, as in when they are asking the collectivo driver to take them all the way home. It kind of feels like home to me.

Anyway, I was leaving Socorro a note about a woman who has changed her arrival dates. She wants to come to stay at Socorro’s about a month earlier than originally planned. So far it has taken six round-trip walks and three internet trips to get the change arranged. This is another person who somehow can’t afford to pay $9 US a night for a room with a private bath. Anyway……Guia lives next door to Socorro, and is one of the people I shared my plants with when I moved to to my new place. Today Guia showed me how my old plants were doing. The vine with the mauve flowers had grown about six feet in that last couple of months.And the coleus had tripled in size and colored up very nicely.The Bird of Paradise has grown alot, with about 10 new stems coming up. Looked great. And so did the other plants.Guia was very sweet, explaining to me why the plants were looking so good. Water and more or less sun.

I really like being around Guia. She works hard at various jobs and always manages to have a smile on her face. And she knows and sings all the songs that are sung on the various perinigraciones around town for special days like Guadalupe’s Day and San Rafael’s Day. And the Posada too.

I also spent some time a few days ago with my neighbor, (and original landlady in Chacala), Aurora. We pruned her roses and tidied up and watered her plants. She does a great job of keep the plants at her place looking good. She has four rental units, and everything always is nice and tidy, inside and out.

My landlady’s plants are looking better than ever. Her husband has been watering regularly and everything is growing quickly. Her roses look wonderful this season, and so do the other plants.

My plants are looking good, but I don’t seem to be very focused on plants right now. Today at the Las Varas tianguis I bought three plastic pots, 8 pesos each. They are very vivid colors. I don’t know what I was thinking. I need to get some nice soil, but I will have to wait until my next money comes in.

Then I will transplant all the plants that are doubled and tripled up into their own pots. They are all growing very quickly, and I think I will separate them out so each pot has only one kind of plant.

I am hoping to get some more plants next week, from the nurseries and my neighbors. Plus my landlady has several pots that can be divided, and we are going to do that next week after I get the dirt.