The large plant in the center of the photo is what’s prompted this “resolution.” I seem to be full of them this year, most of them which I am sure that I will never be able to keep, of course!
This is a variegated pittosporum. It’s not a house plant. It’s a shrub that grows in warm climates. I saw it on my trip to Italy in 1999 and fell in love with it. I’ve also seen it, as well as its non-variegated cousin, on my trips to Texas.
My “resolution,” if you will, is to try not to fall in love with these huge plants that were never intended to be house plants. As I just mentioned, this is a shrub. The only reason it’s in my house in a pot is that I can’t grow it outside in my cold climate.
So why am I growing it at all? Well, because, as I mentioned, I saw a lovely hedge of it in Italy, outside of Rome, at a restaurant where I enjoyed a lovely open-air dinner on a warm, late summer night. My chair backed up tot this hedge and the foliage is slightly fragrant. That was all it took. When I saw a small plant offered for sale, it brought back that wonderful memory of that open air dinner and the rest is history.
I didn’t realize that this plant flowered and had lovely fragrant flowers int he spring. It won’t do it for me every spring–but that’s part of its charm too. But still–if I keep falling in love with shrubs, I’ll have to move out of my house!
Gardendaze 
This post made me chuckle.. I totally understand. 🙂
Thanks for reading–& your sympathy and support!
Karla
Me too. Pittosporum tobira ‘Variegata’ and the unvariegated sort are both very common here. There is a dwarf cultivar that is too common. As funny as it is that someone would grow them inside, I used to grow several houseplants that grew out in the garden in the Los Angeles region. I really liked the few rubber trees, Ficus elastica, that grew in my former home, but they were nothing like the HUGE gnarly specimen with impressively buttressed roots that grew in front of Bank of America right downtown in Beverly Hills (near Los Angeles)! It made mine seem so pathetic.
Oh that’s interesting. But of course tropicals grow completely differently indoors–look at my poor pittosporum. And I am sure it won’t surprise you to know that I have all sorts of ficus, including several ficus elastica.
Karla