Location, location, location

Back in the days when every hippie had a houseplant -- some of them even legal -- my fave was a Dracaena marginata. It was perfectly happy next to the radiator in my steam-heated apartment in Evanston -- enough humidity and warmth to stay snug through the bitter winter and drought-tolerant enough to survive my spells of seasonal ennui.

But that was Zone 5, by the USDA's reckoning, and this is Zone 11 -- where the plant doesn't need the house, and the environment is a radiator. It likee!

This one was growing wild in the old yard but got smashed to bits during demolition back in February. In March and April, its remnants were covered by old piling stones. Then it got staked through the roots when we got temporary electrical service. And now: voila, again finding its place in the sun -- along with offspring from its broken bits, for heaven's sake.

The tropics are a different world. A lecture up the Keys this weekend by a senior curator at Fairchild Gardens would surely face a Zone 5 chill in Evanston: "Tough Love for Better Mangos."