I approve of the sudden and unexpected chain of events occurring in my potted plants.
They are arranged next to the north-facing glass doors in my living room where they receive their daily 6 hours or so of sunlight in this glacial wonderland we call Canada. I often have the doors open a few inches (despite the subzero temperature outside) to allow proper airflow in the room. With the portable heater aimed at them on and off, they go from feeling the freezing breezes of February in Canada to the blast of heat from the built-in fan. And for some reason the plants have begun to bloom. Some of the plants are of the blooming variety – so it’s not a huge surprize to see flowers in the middle of winter. But some of them are plants that I have a hard time believing were meant to give birth to such exotic petalled plummage. It’s like the twilight zone in that corner. Every day I discover some strange freaky flower lurking under the leaves.
Yesterday I saw a pillbug traipsing across the carpet. As an interesting aside I’d like to note that another difference between California and here, is that in California the pillbugs are often called potato bugs (spawn of the devil) and are much rounder than their flatter cousins up here in the North.
Anyways, I knew the cat would get the pillbug (and I dreaded the crunch) so I quickly picked him up with a napkin and plopped him into the big funeral plant a friend gave me (the funeral plant is also blooming).
Then, worried that my new pet might need nourishment I promptly looked up ‘what do pillbugs eat’ on Google. Turns out they eat rotting vegetation. So that was okay since I was certain there were a few leaves rotting underneath the foliage.
When I told my friend this story she asked why I hadn’t dropped it off the balcony. She said I looked absolutely stricken when she said that, and of course I was. Poor little bugger wouldn’t last a minute at minus 9 degrees. At which point we started to debate whether the fall would kill him first. Ultimately I think we both came to the private realization that it was a moot point.
Believe me the thought has not escaped me that perhaps there are many pillbugs living in the dirt of my potted plants. I know for a fact they’re there in the summer when the pots are on the balcony. Which begs the question: how did they get there in the first place? It’s not like they fly (see above). They must arrive in the plants from the nursery. Which supports the information I read on the internet – that pillbugs are everywhere and nothing short of lighting them on fire with gasoline will rid you of them. Kinda extreme.
I just hope they stay in the plants. I’m still not sure where that pillbug thought he was going yesterday when he was struggling valiantly across the gray pile carpet of my living room but I’ll tell you one thing – it wasn’t towards the exit.
