VINCENT HERE

Let's talk about the plants in our apartment

When we started to rent the apartment in Burnaby, we moved with our plants.

Miracle Fruit

One of these plant was a Miracle Fruit, officially known as Synsepalum dulcificum.

Miracle Fruit
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We had bought this plant in 2011 in Florida and came back with in in August 2012. We had all kinds of problems bringing it to Canada. This will be explained in due time in the story of my life. For now, let's just say that we nickname our miracle fruit bush "the illegal immigrant".

Miracle fruits have a very interesting characteristic:

When the fleshy part of the fruit is eaten, this molecule binds to the tongue's taste buds, causing sour foods to taste sweet.
[Wikipedia]

So, when you drink beer after eating one miracle fruit, it tastes sweet, not bitter. I am not sure Hive account@meesterboom would appreciate this!

Our illegal immigrant produced fruits the first two years, then started to slowly die. Soon after the move to the apartment, we decided to let it go.

Banana Bush

In 2012, we also bought a banana bush. In 2015, it started to die, but it has produced a child. So, we cut the original bush.

The son was also dying when we moved to the apartment, but it had also produced two children. We cut the son and now we have two grandsons of the original banana bush.

Low Mallow

This is a Malva pusilla, also known as "low mallow".
It is an invasive plant, but we like it, as it produces beautiful flowers.

The low mallow is currently on our balcony and is still flowering.
We may leave it there for the winter, or bring it inside.

Orchid

This orchid has flowered several times after we bought it, but has not done so in the last two years.
Maybe it does not like to be compared to the Eiffel Tower?

Christmas Cactus

This Christmas cactus is actually inside the apartment. I just moved it to the balcony to photograph it.

I believe it is either a Schlumbergera truncata or a Schlumbergera orssichiana.

The one on top is over twenty years old. It has produced many beautiful flowers similar to these ones:

1024px-Cactus_de_noël_rev.jpg
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The cacti in the lower pots are in fact parts of the original plant that have been planted. They are doing well and we expect them to flower soon.

My Cactus

This was a gift from my daughter Betty ( Hive account@bettym3 ) for my birthday 3 years ago.

As indicated to me in his comment by Hive account@galberto, the name of this plant is Sansevieria trifasciata, commonly named "snake plant", "snake tongue" or "mother-in-low's tongue".