Houseplants

    Is it just me, or are plants easy to kill? Especially houseplants, I'm amazed at other peoples' ability to not only keep plants inside, but make them thrive (I have 3 'golden hunter's robe' pothos vines languishing in a vase of water as we speak).
    Enter the avocado tree. I have never grown any plant so easily. These little trees are so strong and so easy to grow! I got inspired by a lady at our church. She has a small avocado tree in a pot with a large Christmas (or Easter, can't recall..) cactus. It was planted in the pot many years ago, and she's cut it back more than once.
    My first try was an abject failure. I stuck toothpicks in the sides and suspended it halfway in water just like the book said. Nothing. Weeks, months, nothing. I gave up.
   Months later, I pulled an exceptionally large pit out of an avocado while I was making the Man's lunch, one morning. I was sort of appalled at how big it was, nearly golfball-sized. Then I noted that at the bottom of the pit, there was a tiny root hair. I set the pit aside, and once the Man was on his way to work, I hopscotched outside to a pot full of dirt that the Inlaws had asked me to keep while they were on a trip. I scratched a hole in the dirt and pushed the pit in, covering it with at least an inch of dirt. I watered it thoroughly and completely forgot about it for a week or two. Literally. Gasping in horror, I rushed outside and watered it again. I moved the pot to a place where I would see it every day, where it would get lots of sun. In a few weeks, a tiny little sprig stuck up out of the ground.

 

   About a year later, the tree is about 13" tall and thriving. It's a little lopsided because there were a million bugs hatching out of the dirt back in November. The only thing I could think to do was put it outside for two nights, so the frost would kill the bugs. I was half afraid it would kill the tree too, but it didn't. The leaves got burnt but we picked them off as they died, making sure not to pick off all the burnt leaves before new ones were out. 

   I like the style of pot my SisInlaw picked out, but it really should've had a drainage hole in the bottom with a tray beneath it. It's hard to keep plants properly watered when the pot has no drainage hole. The water has to soak up through the tree or evaporate, so you can very easily over- or underwater.