Tag: plant

Bertie Botts Every Flavour Plant Clipping

First there was a plant that belonged to my step kids’ step mother’s mother. When she passed away, their step mother took the plant home with her.

When my step daughter, Bellana, got her own place she took a clipping of that plant and used it to grow a new plant for her apartment. She named the plant Burt. I don’t know if the original plant had a name or not.

During the early days of the Covid lockdown Bellana took her plant, Burt, to our house. While it was with us, Bellana gave us a clipping to grow another plant. We named ours Bertha. Bertha is now gigantic and still growing, but much of her early growth is dying off. The plant is alive, but it doesn’t seem terribly happy. I got nervous about the plant’s prognosis so I did a thing.

I took another clipping and put it into a glass of water. Nothing happened for what seemed like a very long time and I was afraid that I was going to fail in my attempt to keep Bertha alive forever. Then, late last week, a new root grew! Then a second new root! Excellent! The new clipping is alive!

A few minutes ago I put it into a pot full of potting soil. Will it survive the transfer? I hope so, but I have no way to know. It has plenty of soil, food, and water. I will watch it like a hawk to make sure it doesn’t lack for anything until it proves to me that it’s thriving. After that I’ll just treat it like a normal plant and let it grow like crazy the way Bertha did.

Say hello to the new baby plant. I have decided to name it Bertie Botts Every Flavour Plant Clipping, which I will probably just shorten to Bertie Botts Every Flavor Plant… or maybe just Bertie.

Wish our new green friend luck!

Roots

I took a new clipping of the plant we grew from a clipping from the plant that Bellana grew from a clipping from her step mother’s plant. It’s been sitting in water near a window for weeks and the cats have been terrorizing it. They drink the water, they knock the clipping out of the glass. It’s terrible. I assumed the attempt was going to fail, but I didn’t throw it out. I just left the glass of water with the clipping by the window. Two days ago I checked it after neglecting it for almost a week and there are two new roots sprouting off of it! Success!

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196/365

I just ordered some potting soil and a little pot. Hopefully it survives long enough for them both to get here so I can pot this babie!

Bertha Redux

Bellana has a plant that she named Burt. It grew from a clipping taken from her step mother’s mother’s plant. During the pandemic lockdown Burt ended up at our house for a short time. Bellana cut off a clipping and Jen and I grew a new plant with it. We named it Bertha.

Bertha was a frequent source of blog posts for a while, but I haven’t been sharing any updates lately. She’s still alive and kicking, but she’s definitely having a rough go these days. A bunch of her leaves have died, while new ones are still sprouting. If I keep her watered she does okay, but she’s so big now that we don’t really have any place to put her and I fear she’s close to the live/die tipping point.

With the goal of keeping some form of the original plant alive forever, I took two new clippings this morning. They are in Harry’s room in a glass of water sitting next to the window. Unfortunately the weather is so gloomy and awful there isn’t a lot of sunlight to be found. It should get better over the weekend. Here’s hoping the two clippings grow some new roots and I can pot them both and have two more chances of keeping the original plant alive for all time.

Wish Bertha’s kids luck.

Plant

The plant that lives on the incredibly dirty window sill in the cellar was about 66% dead last week. I have been watering it regularly and pruning it and trying to keep it alive, and now it has a huge new leaf opening up. It still looks diseased and dying though. I wonder if it’s supposed to.

I also can’t seem to take a decent picture of the little bastard. I should use a camera with a flash but that’s cheating.

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