Pickin’ Weeds
As you can see, my Aloe Vera plant has spawned a baby plant! I had heard about this sort of thing happening with Spider plants, but hadn’t considered whether my aloe vera would do a similar thing in terms of reproduction. It is certainly pleasing to me to see that it is healthy enough to be doing such things, and it’ll be nice to give it a new home in its own pot at some later date (once I find out how to go about that).
The interesting thing about this is that it nearly never happened. When the plant first sprouted out, it looked like a weed. It had two leaves, both rounded, and being unsure about where the soil might have come from when I re-potted the Aloe Vera, I considered it likely that it was a weed got in there. I nearly picked it out, but somehow I decided against it. It was no threat, so small a thing, and I was curious to see how it might turn out.
Days later, new leaves grew on it, and these leaves were sharp and spiky. “Aha! Now I know what you are, you’re an Aloe Vera too!” I guess those little rounded leaves were early ones, just to get some photosynthesis going, and I figure they’ll fall off at some point.
It was a good lesson. We may think we are picking at weeds, pulling them out and getting rid of them because we don’t want them. But how often do we consider why we don’t want them? How often do we ask ourselves if they could be of value if we keep them? Getting rid of something too early can be a disaster, and this is often shown in throwing away things that we later think “Oh I wish I hadn’t thrown that away!”, or when we quit a project or a hobby because we think we can’t do it or it isn’t for us, and then later regret it.
In life, it is ok to weed out the things that do not serve us. In fact, I would say it is a good thing. But sometimes it pays to let something grow just a little, at least until we can identify whether it really is a weed or not.