Thursday, April 30, 2020

And Then This Happened

A while ago - not sure exactly what with days blurring somewhat with the self isolation and all but probably about six or seven weeks ago - I decided one of the dracaena fragrans which live in pots in a sheltered spot on my back veranda didn't look too happy. Since its common name is the happy plant I thought I should do something about it. So I chopped off its crown of leaves.

This may seem harsh but in fact it's a plant that can easily be propagated this way as my plant savvy sister-in-law reminded me. So there I was with a sad looking trunk in one pot and the crown sitting in the shade with its base resting on top of the potting mix of another pot. From there I pretty much left both to their own devices just keeping the potting mix damp and noting as I did that the crown still looked healthy.

Then I hurt my back. This is not an uncommon happening ever since a fall I had many years ago. I turn the wrong way, bend awkwardly, sneeze, cough, whatever and my back seizes up. It means though that I am very limited as to what I can do especially with arthritic knees that that don't take kindly to bending. So for the next few weeks it was pretty much just hosing all my potted plants from a height and hoping. In the last few days, though, I have finally been able to bend and this is what I found.





This is the decapitated crown which now has a stem of about 10 centimetres and is well on its way to being a new and healthy plant.








Meanwhile the apparently dead trunk it came from is already shooting in two places so it looks like I'll end up with a happy plant with two crowns.









Lovely as this is it's created something of a problem because much as I'd love to have one or both of them inside we share our house with an inside cat and the leaves are toxic. Given how much cat grass he eats bringing them in is a risk I'm not prepared to take. I'm not at all sure either that I have room for three of them on my veranda. Pisces doesn't think I have room for two, truth be told. Still I'm not letting that bother me too much for now. I won't really have to make a decision for some months to come and by then I'm sure I'll have found a solution.


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