Friday Fabulous Flower - Cheerful house plants

 Dear Readers, In the waning days of 2021 TPP "enjoyed" the hospitality of our neighboring hospital where it was determined that was not a complete picture of health.  Now getting used to this idea may take a bit of time.  So your indulgence for my infrequent blogging is requested.

That said, some house plants are tremendously cheerful in those dark and rather gloomy post-holiday, not so cheerful days of January.  Today's cheer is actually a quite easy plant to grow in your house, and believe it or not it is a non-hardy azalea.  These are commonly sold during the holiday season and they can stay in flower for weeks.  Actually this azalea was purchased 3 or so years ago, and grows outside in hanging basket on a garden hook for 6 months and brought inside this year well into October.  It started flowering about a month ago and has been in full bloom for 2 weeks.  Last spring it was pruned back and given acidic fertilizer (Heath family).  The double flowers are not totally to my liking, but it is a huge long-lasting flower display.  Very cheerful. It likes to be kept evenly moist so it needs careful watering both inside and out.  Not sure what species if used, but it is not hardy. The flowers are quite large on this rather small plant.  The short days and cooler temps certainly promote flowering in this plant.