My mother’s mother-in-law’s tongue

Yeah, that title’s a mouthful, right? You know it.

Several years ago I gave my mother a mother-in-law’s tongue. Subsequently, she put it in the guest bedroom and forgot about it. There it became root bound and went without much water or a whole lot of light for lord knows how long.

Meet the Dracaena trifasciata, a.k.a., the mother-in-law’s tongue.

Much to my mother’s surprise she found that the plant had bloomed. In her seventies, she said she’s never seen one bloom before. Just goes to show that mild neglect will produce growth but don’t tell her I said that.

It’s true though. Many plants, including most houseplants, have to become rootbound and stressed to bloom.

I told her to water the poor thing and enjoy. It may be decades before the plant blooms again, if ever.

According to Wikipedia: It is a species of flowering plant in the family Asparagaceae, native to tropical West Africa from Nigeria east to the Congo. It is most commonly known as the snake plant, Saint George’s sword, mother-in-law’s tongue, and viper’s bowstring hemp, among other names. Wikipedia

In case you’d like to sharpen your own skills and green thumb, here’s a couple of good reads for you.