Monday, March 14, 2011

Random plant event: Furcraea foetida offset

Happy Pi Day!

I'll admit that today's subject isn't a particularly exciting photo, but it's one of those cases where what it represents is exciting. This plant had been growing in the parent plant's pot for quite a while; I first noticed there was a pup last May.

At some point this winter, I noticed that it didn't seem to be doing so well -- the parent plant and I haven't figured out this whole winter-watering situation yet. I let it go for a long time, then water, but then when I water, a leaf or two will yellow and die. I haven't figured out whether that's because I watered, or if it's because I let it get really dry first. It's usually grown outdoors, so there's not a lot of information out there about how to do it indoors.

Anyway. So at some point I noticed that the pup seemed to be doing poorly, more so than the parent, so I pulled it out and gave it its own pot. I didn't figure the two-leafed pup would survive the winter -- bad time to transplant, it was already stressed -- but it seemed to be needing more water than what it was getting.

The news today is that the offset is growing a third leaf:


It's still tiny, obviously (the pot is 3 inches along the diagonal), and it's not clear that it's ever going to grow huge, healthy leaves like the parent, but at least it's growing, and I can still have hope that it will grow huge, healthy leaves someday. Considering that I was pretty sure I'd killed it by moving it, that's pretty good news.


2 comments:

danger garden said...

Congrats! When I bought my first Furcraea it had a small pup about this size growing extremely close to the mama plant. I attempted to separate it when I potted the big plant but I barely got any roots and it died (the pup, not the mama thankfully). So you've already had more success than I!

Jenn said...

It's the little things that make our hearts soar...

Here's hoping the pup makes it big!