About this time last year, I wrote a column about a house
plant which I thought was called a zebra plant. It actually wasn't a zebra plant, but a close relative, the
croton. There is very little difference
in the leaves of these two, but a huge difference, and the reason I wrote the
column, is that the croton produces a stem full of little white flowers.
Well, last year I was so intrigued with the croton that I
kept pestering it until one day I accidentally knocked off the stem with the
flowers on it. If one could be
heartbroken over the loss of a flower, that was me. I really was disappointed that I couldn't watch nature take its
course and produce generation after generation of buds and blooms on that stem.
This spring our croton again produced that little stem in
the beginning of April. I took a
picture of it (above) on April 5th just a few days after it appeared. then I tried to keep track of it in photos
as each successive bloom took place.
Below is a picture of how it looked on April 21st, just before its first
blooming.
A few days later, the blooms were starting, and there were
new little buds forming for the next bloom.
This cycle continued through five generations, until I got
the below shot of the stem with no blooms but a huge number of buds. The stem was well over a foot long by this
time on June 1st.
I took the picture below on June 5th. There are over 100 flowers on that one stem
with more yet to come.
I don't know how many more times this plant will bloom this
year, as that stem is getting very heavy and isn't too thick. It has been
growing and blooming for two months now, and it shows no sign of stopping
anytime soon.
I can't end this column without a full view of the croton
plant with blooming stem. Isn't that amazing?
Well, maybe that's just my opinion.
