If plants were as comfortable as people believe they must be, they’d never bloom.

Plants, unfortunately, have become the victims of our strange modern desire to live in a constant, unvarying, machine-controlled environment all year long. We will not tolerate feeling hot or cold. The minute we feel the drip of summer, we go inside and crank the air conditioning to 72 or below. The minute we feel the first nip of winter, we turn the heater up to 76, a temperature deemed unbearable in summer. Not even Hawaii can claim to have such a uniformly boring climate as the one we’ve made for ourselves.

But don’t assume that your plants will benefit from the same rigid environment.

A few lucky folks have been sending me photos of their night blooming cereus in glorious full bloom. Just as many people are sending me questions about why this big-flowered, vine-like cactus never blooms at all, no matter how nice they are to it.

The answer’s easy: The ones that never bloom are being forced to live in “ideal” conditions fit only for computers and people who believe they should never break a sweat or put on a sweater.

Many plants simply won’t bloom unless some change in their living environment triggers them. It may be changes in the length of night and day, or heavy rains following a long dry spell, or this thing we call the change of seasons, when temperatures take that wonderful dive from hot hurricane summer to the cool dry days of fall.