Plant Power

Today I'm going back to work after somewhere around 2 1/2 months off and I'm going to miss being able to spend afternoons outside on my balcony with my plant babies.  In the last 2 years, I've started getting really into plants and then are all over our living room and balcony.  We don't get a lot of light inside our apartment, so we have mostly cacti inside, but we also have some cacti and succulents outside as well.  There's something about being surrounded by plants that's so calming.  Every once in a while I get an uncontrollable urge to buy more plants, which was difficult during quarantine because I wasn't sure if I trusted buying plants online.  I finally found a site I trusted and bought an olive tree and a snake plant, just to have my order cancelled a week later.  After that, I gave up on buying plants online and waited until I could find a plant store that was open.  The big cactus & pot below are from La Belle Plant in Santa Monica, a great mostly outdoor shop that opened mid-way through quarantine.

In addition to growing potted plants, I've started propagating succulents and watching them slowly grow.  It's a long process, but there's something kind of magical about it.  Check out some of the plants I've been propagating below!

These little plants are growing off the cut stem of a plant I re-potted.  I had this succulent inside our apartment, but it stretched - meaning it grew really tall - because there wasn't enough sunlight for it.  Rather than keep an odd-looking succulent around, I cut and re-potted the top and continued to water the stump.  About 8-10 weeks later, I've got 4 new buds growing out of the stump and the other plant is thriving in its new outdoor environment.

At the same time, I've been growing new plants from the leaves of other plants.  When you pull a leaf off a succulent, a new plant will start to grow from the nutrients inside the leaf.

I've also been propagating this string of pearls succulent.  I started with just 3 stems I purchased off Etsy and I've been growing and re-planting the strands.  Eventually, I will have a beautifully full string of pearls plant.  All that happens is I cut the stems as they grow, stick a pen about an inch down in the soil, and plant the cut stems.

Again, this is a long process, but it will be worth it someday!  Once I have fully grown and full succulents, I'll be sure to update you. 😋