It’s important for a plant to be in an appropriate container. Too small, and it won’t be able to grow any larger (perhaps even dying from a lack of growth). Not well enough draining (or too draining), and it’ll have trouble keeping up a good water content. I repotted the surviving blue firs again, back into a smaller (but more stable and less well draining) pot, and after all that talk of survival of the fittest early on when so many of them germinated, we have a winner. I’m now looking forward to seeing this guy grow well, he’s already spent quite a while strengthening his trunk there, which is the sort of growth that isn’t always noticable, and you could be forgiven for thinking nothing was happening.

The baby aloe has found a pot of its own now. Being unsure of how to propagate it once it grew off the parent plant, I put the decision off. Then one day I saw it was in a sorry state, as was the parent plant. Suddenly I had two plants where there was once one, and the competition for nutrients was reflected in their health. A quick bit of research, a sharp knife cut later, and the baby was transplanted (along with a good portion of root system) into a new home, and now I put care and attention into both to aid their recovery.

When we, as people, only view ourselves in a small way, it is as if we are growing in a small pot. Naturally this restricts our growth, and can turn out very unpleasant indeed. In the words of Charlotte Joko Beck, we need to learn our ABC’s, and become A Bigger Container. Doing that, we’ll have space to deal with life more easily, to grow, and not be lost among our transitory identifications. Instead, perhaps we’ll be able to glimpse the vastness of who we really are. And wouldn’t that be just magnificient?

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 27th, 2006 at 7:26 pm and is filed under Bonsai & Plants. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.