You Grow Girl™

A strange thing happened -- my amaryllis 'Pamela' produced a seed head. Obviously it's not unusual for a flowering plant to produce seeds, but my other amaryllis 'red lion' hasn't done this. It's kind of my fault because I didn't cut the stem off after the flower was spent. But it produced the seed head so quickly, and it grew so bulbous, I was curious to see what would happen and what the seeds would look like. Yesterday the seed head broke and a bunch of thin, black, kind of papery seeds spilled out. I cut the seed head off and now I just have to sit and wait to see if the plant produces another flower (unlikely) or goes straight for foliage.

Last night I repotted a draecena for my brother. I didn't really do it for him. I could care less if he has nice plants in his apartment. I did it for the plant. I couldn't stand to see it suffer one more minute. He inherited this plant from someone else so the state of it wasn't entirely his fault. Still it consisted of three dragon trees in one (fairly large) pot with very little, very dry, very old soil. You know when potting soil gets so old and dry and crap that it resembles ash? Like that, only it only half-filled the container and the poor trees couldn't even hold themselves up. Someone has stuck some bamboo poles in the soil, and then wrapped an old tv cable around the trunks and poles to prop the trees up. I admire the ingenuity but still it was kind of sad.

Sorry bro. Your secret is out.

So while I was at the hardware store yesterday I bought a big bag of soil and then last night I repot the whole thing. The container was big enough so I removed all the old soil, removed all the old soil from the roots, removed all the dead roots from the roots, and repotted everything in fresh soil. It looks good now and the trees are holding themselves up without the aid of sticks and cable. Just call me the plant doctor. And believe me, after all the dying that has taken place around here lately, I have a lot to make up for.