April 12, 2012 by Fl?neur Gardener
In a corner of the sitting room in the apartment we have an old (1890?s?) pedestal that comes from my great-great-great aunt or some obscure family connection like that. I grew up with it in my childhood home, and when my parents ? rightfully ? decided that it really wasn?t all that pretty and needed to go, I insisted on bringing it into my room. I?ve now had it for some 25 years, and it has always looked more or less out-of-place in any home I?ve had, but I love it all the same.
However, it has now found it?s perfect match, and that?s what this is all about: a cissus that the Fl?neur Husband inherited after the death of his much-loved grandmother some years back.
It softens the rather formal pedestal and the pedestal gives the cissus a great platform for spilling over the edges of the pot and really make a statement against the white walls of our home.
A couple of weeks back I gave it a rather rough treatment, cutting back any dead leaves and stems and generally leaving it looking a bit bedraggled, so I re-potted it ? it also used to be in a far too small white pot, so I moved it to a larger black pot that seems to disappear between the foliage as a natural extension of the pedestal ? and it has really taken off.
You can see in the picture above that it has even discovered that it?s actually a climbing plant, though it has nothing to climb except itself. I?m still not sure whether to give it some sort of support or whether to just let it do its thing as best it can.
As bad luck ? and clumsy scissor skills ? would have it, my pruning included me cutting off one perfectly healthy twig of the plant, so I figured it would be worth seeing if I could get it to root in a vase, and hallelujah!
There are now two small white roots, so I will leave it in the vase for a bit longer to grow more roots before potting it up. Voil?, a new plant for free!
Also, the internet tells me that these plants have a limited life span, so I guess this accidental cutting is a blessing, as it will continue my husband?s inheritance and the memory of his grandmother once the original plant starts giving up.
(The internet also tells me that to take cuttings from this plant you need to make a clean cut below a leaf node, dip it in rooting hormone and pot it up directly. RUBBISH! Why would anybody want to do so much faffing about when you can just make a random cut, stick it in water and watch it grow?)
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