somewhere in the middle: Something from nothing

Back in April I spent a Sunday afternoon re-potting some houseplants that were long overdue for new homes and dirt. I am so happy to be writing with good news. All of the plants are happy and well, and it is still calming to me to know that they have recently been re-potted and the ever present to-do task is done for a while.

First, the most impressive before and after plant.

Before:

And after:

I'd say this one is thriving in it's new home. And since I'm spending so much time at work lately, I guess it's nice to have it there with me.

But the most exciting progress is with the plant that I named the "5-foot-tall palm-looking-thing," because I still have no idea what the real name is. This is the plant that I couldn't bear to part with even though it clearly was not doing well. I followed my husband's advice to lop off the top and put it in water and see if we could get the top to grow roots or the trunk to grow sprouts. The top sat in a vase of water for at least six weeks. It wasn't droopy, but it wasn't growing, either. Then the trunk got moldy under the plastic bag and nothing else happened and I had pretty much given up on both. We got back from our summer vacation to Virginia in mid-June to find that the top in the vase had finally sprouted a single, white dot of a root. Now there is a whole web of roots in the water and I think it is finally ready to have a home in a pot of dirt.

The trunk is even more amazing. After a few weeks we basically stopped watering it, because the trunk was clearly not going to grow anything. Probably the only source of water it had was the occasional glass of water being poured in by my three-year-old for fun. About two weeks ago my husband very excitedly told me that something had sprouted near the trunk. I have no earthly idea how this thing sprouted new growth from below the dirt with virtually no water, but it did.

The trunk on "lopping day"