We had our first hard frost Hallowe’en weekend so there are no more flowers left outside. Not even my little toad lilies. Then of course, the weather warmed up again – it’s supposed to go up to 18C today!

Sadly, that’s no help for the outside plants.

But inside…

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My pink Christmas cactus has bloomed! It’s my oldest, and largest Christmas cactus, and its just covered in buds. It’s going to bloom for at least a couple of weeks.

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I also have a white one (second oldest), and when the flowers open up entirely, they have pink centres. The yellowy-salmon one is my youngest, and favourite. I found it at Wal-Mart a couple years ago. I’d never seen that colour before and I’ve never seen it since.

Then there’s this neat plant.

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It’s a Crossandra (aka Firecracker plant). I found it at Mom’s grocery store one day this summer when I was visiting. I’d never hear of it before and thought I’d give it at try. It had flowers on it when I got it, so I figured they die off pretty quickly, and it would be a while before I saw them again. But within a few weeks it was flowering again.

I figured I wouldn’t see flowers when I brought it in for the winter, but again I was wrong – because there they are, happily blooming away!

And the other day, I finally picked up a plant I’ve been coveting for a while…

A goldfish plant!

I bought one in 2007 as a house warming gift to myself when I first moved out on my own. At the time I had Tux and Rocky, and Rocky was especially hard on plants – the goldfish was one of the few I could have around him with no trouble.

That goldfish plant was spectacular – the flowers were yellow with beautiful red veins. Like this:

I kept it going for many year and when it finally outgrew its pot, I split it up, giving a piece to Mom and a piece to her neighbour. Apparently, it didn’t like that though, as not one of us kept our piece alive after that.

It’s been several years since, and I’ve never seen one like it, though I look every time I’m in a nursery or grocery store. I finally decided to settle of the plain orange one, though if I ever come across another red/yellow one, you can bet I’m scooping it up!