~ re-potting the plants ~
about a month ago, we bought two canned plants from Action City. one is a Tomato Ornamental (i guess you’re not supposed to eat the fruit), the other one is a Mimosa.
i tried to look around the web to find more information about these canned plants, but i could only find one link. i’ve thrown away the cans this morning, while maybe (just maybe) they could’ve had a web address regarding the plants. Oh well…
this is the picture from the link above.
basically, the canned plants are a can filled with a few seeds and some sponge-like materials. the can is the size of a Coke can. the top part can be opened by pulling a tab, which rips the whole top (kinda like SPAM can), and on the bottom, it has Coke-like opening, so it leaves a small hole for water drainage.
you water the plant until the seeds grow into a real plant. when the plant has grown big and strong enough, you’re supposed re-pot it to a normal pot. by this stage, you’re actually having a real plant.
well, we’re at that stage now.
within a month, the Mini Tomato has overgrown the can. it got too big and it absorbs water like sponge. it looks sooo healthy and keeps sprouting off new buds. i can’t wait to see little tomatoes hanging on those tiny branches!
the Mimosa, on the other hand, is a little slower. it’s been slow to begin with. there was a point that i wanted to throw away the Mimosa (also known as Putri Malu — loosely translated as Shy Princess — in Indonesian), because it feels weird having wild shrubs as a plant. but ari loves it and want to keep it… he is amused with the fact that we could have an interactive plant. you know, it moves and closes up whenever its leaf touches an object.
anyways, today, we decided that they both need to move to a bigger pot and live together with other full-grown plants we have.
first, we stole our neighbor’s soil. our neighbor has a whole gardening tools and supplies out near our door. it always made me wonder why they have so many gardening supplies in this garden-less apartment complex. but it comes in handy this time.
i wanted to buy our own supplies, but they stink. and it’s hard to carry around soil and fertilizer around the city. basically, we got lazy. then, ari came up with the stealing idea (originally, ari wanted to steal the soil from the Singapore Istana… but that’s another story).
after that, it only took us about 15 minutes to re-pot both plants. the Tomato’s root was all over the place. it was obvious that it needs re-potting. the Mimosa is a little annoying to re-pot. it’s thorny and it closes itself up whenever touched. but we managed to get them to the other pot.
hopefully, the karma of stealing doesn’t come around and cause our plants to die… anyways, there they are! pretty in their new pot. yay!
