Welcome to New York Times readers!

If you're new:
You're probably going to be most interested in the five plants I talked about in the article. These are them:

• Chuck Cunningham (Pandanus veitchii and P. utilis)¹
• Mister Right (Ficus maclellandii)²
• Hooker With a Heart of Gold (Anthurium andraeanum)³
• Schoolgirl of the Underworld (Saxifraga stolonifera)
• Exotic Stranger (Asplundia 'Jungle Drum')⁴

Please also keep in mind that when I was first asked to suggest plants, I wasn't told that the aim was to come up with "hard to kill" plants. Any plant is easy to kill if you're trying hard enough, and these are no exception. That said, none of them is particularly difficult, either. The Anthurium or Asplundia are probably the hardest two, and they're only a little harder than average.

Profiles of many other plants can be found in the sidebar to your right, under the heading "Plant Difficulty Levels, So Far (from most to least difficult)." The quality of the profiles is uneven; there was something of a learning curve.

If you're not new:
So yeah, the anonymity thing is over, sorta. I'm in the New York Times, under my real name, and gods help me there's even a picture. This would be the "good stress" from a week and a half ago. (Specifically: the "good stress" was the photography part; the actual interview happened in late September.)

You are encouraged to continue to call me Mr. Subjunctive.

The actual article begins here; there's also a photo slide show which begins here. My part starts on p. 8 of the slide show, which is also where the picture of me is, so if you'd like to skip directly to that so you can get a jump on the pointing and laughing, click here. Feel free to leave a comment telling me how you were imagining someone totally different.

This, by the way, is going to count as the post for Thursday morning even though it's seven hours early; the regularly-scheduled Thursday post will appear in the afternoon instead. I wanted to get something up for new visitors earlier rather than later. EDITED 11/11/10 4 PM: Actually, there are still so many people showing up from the Times that I think I'm going to leave this post up top for the rest of the day. We'll go back to normal posting tomorrow, I swear.

HASTILY EDITED TO ADD: It should be noted that none of this would have happened were it not for Mr. Brown Thumb, who recommended me to somebody who recommended me to someone else, in a long chain of events which eventually resulted in the interview. He is therefore completely forgiven for the Hothouse Flower incident.

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¹ Doesn't specifically address care for Pandanus amaryllifolius, because I didn't have one yet when I wrote that, but it does deal with culinary use of P. amaryllifolius. So far, treating it the same as my Pandanus veitchiis has been working fine, so the care information probably also applies.
If you're interested in buying a P. amaryllifolius, the only place I know that sells them in the U.S. is Gardino Nursery, which is where I bought mine.
² It says "Ficus binnendijkii," but they're the same plant. UPDATE: Name is fixed. F. maclellandii is the current correct name, according to the taxonomists; it just happens not to be the name I grabbed first when I was writing the profile.
³ This is an old profile, and I'm not especially happy with it, but the care information is still valid.
⁴ The plant is usually sold as Carludovica 'Jungle Drum,' but I'm fairly certain that the plant is actually an Asplundia, not Carludovica.