4.11.10

garnet-hued jade


The south wall of my place has ten feet of windows, letting dramatic sunlight fall into the living room from dawn until dusk.  Plants love it and I love it -- with that much sun, the room is also the warmest spot in an extremely chilly apartment.  

This jade seedling was recently displaced from its side table to make room for a chocolate mint plant.  It landed on the ample windowsill and has seemed to be enjoying life -- though I can never be too certain about it, given that it looked like this in our first, happy year of coexistence:


(That little twig growing in the lower left of the terracotta pot was the sole survivor of the inexplicable leaf-dropping plague that hit Jade Mountain in 2009.  Evidently in the state of plague emergency I forgot to remove the purple retainer case from an otherwise flattering portrait of the plant in its last days . . . )

In its new windowsill home, the much-reduced jade is growing at a noticeable pace for the first time ever.  And as it's growing, it has started showing a red-violet tinge on the underside of its uppermost leaves.  The tinge has now become much darker than in the first photo above, taken only a few days ago.

At first I thought the plant was tricking me again, putting on a show of verdancy while sending out flares of warning from below.  From what I've gathered, however, this is how jades respond to lots of sunlight.  In its striking contrast of color, it looks as though the plant were reflecting the saturated tint of its red container, and communing with the fall leaves outdoors.

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