4 thoughts on “Good Bye 2008”

  1. At the house where I grew up, there was a south facing poinsettia on the wall where the bathroom was. It grew huge every summer, and bloomed. We finally had to have it dug up because it was threatening our drainage. It broke my heart to see it go.

  2. This poinsettia and its plant mate grows at the side of our neighbor’s house, just across the driveway from our kitchen window – and yes, it is huge. When I came here, I fell in love with it, because in Germany we know poinsettias only as small plants which we buy in pots around Christmas (hence the name “Weihnachtsstern” = Christmas Star). So imagine my absolute horror when one day I found the two poinsettia bushes cut back, even brutally so, I thought. Now I know better – yes, one does cut them back every year, and yes, they do come back every year, blazing with color in their full glory.

    But what do you expect from somebody who knows poinsettias only as small plants in pots? 🙂

  3. I imagine that’s the way most of the world knows them. I also grew up with Pride of Barbados bushes and 8′ tall bougainvilleas that grew in peoples’ yards, not in pots. San Antonio is fairly lush for a dry climate. In east Texas, Houston for instance, azaleas grow and bloom annually. I love them, but we can not grow them here. They require acid soil and we have alkaline soil. We can grow hydrangeas, but they bloom pink, not the gorgeous blue they bloom in acid soil.

  4. Ah, bougainvilleas. We have them everywhere here, blazing with color. Hydrangeas are not very high up on my list of favorite flowers, and actually one does not see them here very often. At least I don’t – but maybe one only sees what one likes.

    The German name for Pride of Barbados might amuse you: we call that plant “Peacock Bush.”

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