Thursday, May 31, 2012

Charles - the cool work incentive

My adventures in indoor gardening continue with the arrival of my new plant pal Charles! I am quite thrilled about this one and actually won him in a contest at work! Talk about sweet work incentive program - if only more things in life were rewarded with house plants! As soon as I got him I promptly brought him right home and replanted him into a bigger (prettier) pot in hopes to give it a warm welcome to its new residence. Meet Charles - the coffee plant:




I was hoping for a sunnier day yesterday to take some more flattering photos, but sadly living on the coast means lots of rainy days so that image will have to do. Although it doesn't give him a lot of justice - I assure you he is very green, has a nice waxy cuticle on his leaves, and is perfectly perky in his new pot! I'm trying to take extra care not to kill him with either over watering or neglect (my usual plant death culprits) and am dreaming of the day he has grown into a mid sized coffee tree with lovely cherries I can Martha Stewart roast into an extra fresh cup of joe. Okay, so that is pretty unlikely to happen and even if he does produce fruiting bodies capable of edible coffee beans I'm much too unmotivated to roast the few beans to get anything out of it. Did you know it takes an entire coffee tree to make just one pound of coffee? Charles has a long long way to go before that stage. Looks like I'll stick to enjoying his tropical plant wonderfulness instead! What do you think? Have you ever been given a plant as a gift?

4 comments:

  1. That's cool! I'd like it if my work gave out plants! ^_^ Most of my plants come from my parents, but they aren't really presents, they are just very generous with cuttings ^_^

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  2. That reminds me, I need to water mine!

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  3. I think that you should totally plan to roast coffee! My Mom has been roasting coffee in her popcorn maker and it works great! You might not get enough for a pound, but you might get enough for a cup of coffee! Just a note on coffee plants, they do have this tendency to drop almost all of their leaves and look really sad, this doesn't necessarily mean you have done anything bad, it's just part of their semi-deciduous cycle. Happy growing!

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  4. I've got a seven year old coffee plan that's nowhere near tree sized, and hasn't even threatened to blossom, let alone produce fruit. I think I'd have to plant it in a giant terrarium (like by the pool at Forster's restaurant) in order to have it get big and happy enough. I wonder if they're the kind of tree that needs another of the same to pollinate?

    At any rate, it's a happy looking plant, and I love the idea of houseplants as rewards!

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