In 1964 my grandparents were robustly involved in their little landscaping and nursery business here. My grandmother was particularly fond of cacti and had been collecting, nurturing and transplanting a lovely variety of cacti since before I was born.
Toward that endeavor, she and my grandfather had built a greenhouse dedicated primarily to cacti, with plumbed water, a potting and soils mixing area, and racks and racks of cacti arranged sensibly for ease of access and for paths around, such that one didn’t have to be too concerned about getting stuck with thorns. The structure even housed a little cast-iron wood stove to help keep the temperature up in the winters.
My favorites among the cacti were the barrels, and grandma had one or two that were very old and large. When I was a wee child I loved going in to the greenhouse, helping with cultivation and watering, and wondering at all the textures and colors. Among all the different kinds of plants and shrubs that my grandparents tended and sold, the cacti seemed the most popular.
Sometime while I was away at college in the 1970s the coast experienced a very harsh winter with sub-freezing temperatures. At the same time a particularly nasty strain of the flu was going around and my grandparents and parents all caught it.
That flu pretty well laid everyone up with just about every flu symptom known, and they mostly kept to bed for the duration. One night, there was a very hard freeze, with temperatures in the low teens. While the wood stove had been started earlier in the night, it went out around ten or eleven o’clock. Everyone was too sick to get up and check on the greenhouse, assuming that it was alright. By morning, every cactus in the greenhouse had frozen beyond saving. My grandma didn’t get out of bed for many more days.
Today, the greenhouse is just a tangle of vine maple, willow, ivy and mosses.
My Little Firmament 