Marge's Real Estate Blog: The Draper Report

I bought a beautiful plant at my local Trader Joe's in mid-December called a Christmas Rose.  It had glossy green leaves and snow white flowers.  What attracted me and the other woman who was browsing through the plants with me were the profusion of flowers and the number of unopened buds.  

We both wondered what a Christmas Rose is.  There didn't happen to be any instructions in any of the plants.  I have a Lenten Rose that is in a planter on the northwest-ish side of my house.  The Christmas Rose looks very different than the Lenten Rose.  It turns out they are both in the Hellebore family -  Genus Helleborus.

I bought the plant.  That happens to me often at Trader Joe's, well, almost any other store, too.  The price must be right though.

I knew the plant would look perfect in my foyer.  I set it up on a plant stand in a spot of honor.  Then got busy with other things.  About three days later, I looked at the plant to see if it needed water.  It didn't need water, it needed emergency CPR!  All of the newer soft stems were half wilted.  

I went to my 'go-to' source of plant how-to.  The Sunset Garden Book.  The Christmas Rose is not a house plant! It needs cool weather.  My home is in Northern California just south of San Francisco.  It gets cold here, at least we think so, but not COLD!  I thought I was being kind to the plant protecting it from the cold.

With plants, my mantra is that whatever I do with a plant will either kill it or cure it.  If something is clearly in trouble then you really can't hurt it.

A couple of hours outside in the planter got all of the stems I thought would surely die looking as perky as it was originally.  Now I have to find a permanent spot for it.  It would fit right in with the others in that planter. 

So if the Christmas Rose you bought and placed in your home, looks like it will die, put it outside right away!