Pointed Giants–For Olga

This is the art studio behind my house.  As you can see, it is rather overgrown with vines and other plants, despite the huge palm tree I just had cut down because they said it would interfere with the solar water heater coils soon to be installed.  So, that little scoop out of the roof overhang can be explained by the fact that I actually built my studio around the palm tree just to gain an extra foot of space without having to cut down a tree.  The trunk once occupied that scooped-out place.  If you look up by the electrical wires, though, you might notice a flash of red.  What is it?

Here’s a closer view.  Almost smothered out by the thunbergia and other vines is this stubborn giant.  It was a small poinsettia houseplant given to me by a friend as a housewarming gift when I first moved to Mexico 14 years ago.  After Christmas that year, I planted it in the ground near my wall.  A few years later, I built the studio in front of it.  By then it was obscured by a large banana tree than afterwards died.  Hidden between my studio and the wall, it was long forgotten until  this year, when I suddenly noticed a flash of red peeking over the roof of my studio.

It was my little poinsettia of 14 years ago, now grown into a very tall tree and surviving even though it has been practically choked out by thunbergia and the other hearty vine that grows over my wall.

See that wire running behind it?  that is a wire that either carries telephone messages or electricity to my house and beyond.  This pointed giant is in high company.

So that, Olga, is the story of how poinsettias are more that the symbol of Christmas that they are in El Norte.  Here in Mexico, they are just another subtropical plant that in this climate often grows into a tree–in spite of our best efforts to overlook them!