A long time ago, in a galaxy far, far away (called Buffalo), my aunt gave me this weird glass container for some occasion (Birthday, Christmas, ... something). And I had no idea what to do with the damn thing. I always wanted to try rooting some kind of water-loving plant in there, though. I just didn't know how to do it, so I never got around to doing it (COMMON THEME).
Well, a couple weeks ago I
finally decided to give it a go. I hopped
in my car on my bike and headed over to Home Depot to look at their selection of water-loving plants... only to discover that there wasn't such a section. Apparently, all the plants living in water jars that I had seen as a kid were the work of my green-thumbed mother, who was able to take sprigs of things growing in dirt and make them grow without dirt. So I called her up to solve this mystery. She recommended some kind of plant called a "philodendron", but I couldn't find any of those in the Depot's immense selection of plants. So, I took out the ol' droid and started
beep booping googling around to see what other kinds of plants worked well for this sort of endeavour. "Ivies" said one website. I was excited about that until I remembered that my cats might end up eating some of the plant (because they can scale walls and ruin everything that I hold dear). Ivy wasn't a good idea, since most (if not all) kinds are toxic to cats.
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| I see you there... planning to rip down all the wall decorations... |
"Herbs like mint, basil, or rosemary" said another website. "AHA!" I thought. As far as I knew, these weren't toxic to cats, and they all had a wonderful smell. Since the website mentioned that "leafier" herbs would last longer, I thought of using rosemary. As it turns out, finding a pot of rosemary was no easy feat. I walked around for at least 30 minutes, looking at pot after unlabelled pot (in the dark) until finally I gave up and asked a guy (who asked another guy). The smallest rosemary plant they had was a big mother. So, I decided that I would clip one of his sprigs for the glass and replant the rest of him in a smaller pot. After spending 20 more minutes trying to figure out which smaller pot to get... I finally made it home... and proceeded to do what I do best: FAIL.
Clipping the sprigs was the easy part. I filled the glass container with water, clipped 2 pieces of the rosemary, and JAMMED THOSE SUCKERS INTO THE GLASS BWAHAHA (more on this part later). The transferring of the remaining rosemary plant to the smaller pot was the part where things started going downhill. First of all, my setup was just retarded. I had the bigger pot sitting next to the smaller pot on my kitchen counter (nothing underneath to catch any dirt) and a spoon in my hand to do the digging. A FUCKING SPOON. I don't even know what was going through my head at the time. I also didn't foresee that the rosemary plant would be so goddamn massive. The thing was like an iceberg and had grown to such an extent that its root system filled the
entire pot. I lifted the plant out by its sturdiest stem... only to find that the rest of the pot's contents came with it, all packaged up by a billion roots. Like an idiot, I tried shoving the whole thing into the smaller pot, thinking that maybe I could break the laws of physics and get a larger mass into a smaller one (that's what she said). But after 5 minutes of dirt flying everywhere, I decided to be "smart" for a second... and moved the entire setup INTO MY BATHROOM TUB. So there I was, bent over the side of my tub, pulling the lower roots off of the poor plant until it was a size that the smaller pot could accommodate. I replanted the rosemary in a mixture of its old soil and own DEAD ROOTS. Good thing plants don't have a central nervous system, because I felt really bad about the whole replanting process. At the end of it all, I finally had my "resized" plant in the new pot... and a bathtub full of excess dirt and roots.
Did I mention that my cats got into some of the dirt and proceeded to spread it around the apartment by running over everything? Yay! In any event, after cleaning everything up... I was quite pleased with the results. I had a potted version and hanging version of the rosemary plant, and both looked pretty snazzy. I attached a copper wire to the water-filled glass and hung it on an anchored screw near the window. I brought the potted version into work so that the cats wouldn't get into it and spread even more dirt around.
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| Pretties! |
A couple weeks went by... the potted rosemary was doing surprisingly well and growing new leaves like crazy. But the sprigs in the glass... were slowly, but very surely... DYING. I'll admit, I had a feeling that things would end this way. The glass container was in a place that didn't really get much sunlight, direct or indirect. The glass was also semi-opaque, which meant that very little sunlight was reaching the base of the sprigs. Add to that the fact that I had shoved the sprigs into the glass in such a way as to completely plug it, preventing fresh airflow from reaching the stems inside. Fail...
But I didn't give up on this one. "Fine," I thought, "if I am destined to kill any living plant that I put in that glass... why don't I fill it with DEAD ONES." :3 I hopped
in my car on my bike and headed over to Michael's, where I was able to find an okay selection of dried plants. At first I considered getting some fake ivy or grass to put in the container... but I think I'll wait until I'm 80 or something until I actually go through with something like that. I returned home with some dried "flowers" (probably just some weeds that they dyed to make all pretty), which the cats made sure to find later (in a closed cabinet, mind you) and chew. CATS. :< Thankfully, the stems had been wrapped in plastic and most of them made it out unscathed. I said goodbye to the dead rosemary clippings, washed out the glass container, and filled it with the dried flowers. And I think the result looks pretty goddamn awesome.
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| Pretty and foolproof! |
So there you have it. My story about failing at a project, but not giving up in the face of defeat. I also have a nice-smelling rosemary plant that keeps me company at work now. :-)
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| Your officemate smells amazing. |
