Propagating for Pleasure

Not all that gets propagate around here is for the dinner table and sustaining the body, sometimes it is just for sustaining the soul. 

I used to be a huge house plant person.  Even my dormitory room at college was draped with vines and hanging pots. (Yes, it is true, I wasted my parent’s money at college, but in my defense, they insisted.)

But then something happened to my houseplant love, the farm I think, it could have been children playing in the soil, anyway, now my claim to fame in the house plant department is about two plants.  My Sansevieria and a yet to be identified plant I gave to my mom when my dad died (thirty years ago) which has been divided a few times since. 

Oh and the asparagus fern I put in a terrarium a couple of years ago.

My house plants, much like my house work, suffers from a bit of benign neglect, but for some reason I still manage to keep everyone alive, even the people who live and visit here.

I noticed the other day when I gutted my bedroom for my lungs’ sake that my plants were in need of a little more attention than watering, so everyone took a trip to the Hippy Hot Hut for a little rejuvenation.

The Sansevieria has a rhizomatous root like irises and ginger.  Very easy to divide.   I use a good sharp knife, like my grafting knife, to cut in between growing points making sure there are small root hairs coming off each rhizome piece as well.

I wouldn’t normally split all the growing points up into their own pot, but I’m not sure when I will be getting back to tending to the houseplants so I’m just going to make the bother really worth while. 

I will put a grouping of these Sansevierias back in my room, Sansevierias are known for their air purifying abilities, especially typical building construction toxins and I’m sure I still have a few of those since the remodel two years ago, heck, Dirt is in my room, so I know I do. 

Now I just need to find a house plant that eats hay tidbits and dust and I’ll be good to go.

Instead I seem to have a house plant that I’m sure I’m not supposed to have according to the “experts”.  It sometimes seems more like upholstery than upholstery for all the dust and hair it collects and holds onto.    But I love it, I don’t know what it is, it gets dusty, it is more needy than the Sansevieria, but I still love it.

I brought it home from a day trip I made into the mountains right after my dad died.  My midwife and friend knew that my family was hovering because of my new born baby and my status as a new mom crippled with the irresponsible-baby-of-the-family gene.  She came and stole me for the day, so that I could do a little breathing and still be “safely” in the company of an intelligent person. 

We went into the mountains and on our way home we stopped at a little nursery in Buckley.  I talked the owner out of this plant, she had just propagated it and felt it hadn’t had enough time to properly recover, but I assured her that it would be okay with me.

A small lie, because I wanted to give it to my mom, and she was horrible with indoor plants.   But I figured I could make sure she didn’t kill it. 

My mom loved African violets, because they were a grocery store staple I think it never seemed like a bad thing to her that they died after awhile.  Like poinsettias at Christmas, dead by St. Valentine’s; African violets for the spring, dead by summer. 

Well she managed to keep her new plant alive and thriving until her own death thirteen years later at which time I took it home, under a parting threat from my brother-in-law not to kill it.  Uh huh. Of course.

I have divided it before, not all divisions have survived some come off with too few roots But all of her surviving babies seem to be just fine.  I should start handing some of the offspring around.  I had intended to give each of my daughters one, even though the two youngest probably don’t remember the plant that was always on my mom’s dinning room table.  And then I was going to make sure that my two sisters each received one as well. 

I think I have just enough babies to do that now.