Trying out my green thumb

It is that time of the year when we all are just itchin' to get outdoors and get our hands into the soil. It is a little early for that in our neck of the woods. So I decided to get crafty and trim back some of the leggy plants in the living room and get them potted up to share with one of our daughters.

Years ago a wise older woman told me that she always put her soil in the oven to kill any bacteria if she was reusing her potting soil. I have found that it works just as well in the microwave. I just put the soil in a microwave save bowl and pop it in for a while. Why buy new soil if you have some left over?

Somewhere along the line I have learned that a marble in the center hole will prevent the soil from oozing out when you water. It is always best to use a clean pot to plant in. This one still needs to be scrubbed.

 This is the plant slip in a  little rooting container. When the original plant got a too leggy, I trimmed back some of the over growth and let it root in a vase of water on the window sill. I was able to keep an eye on it there to make sure that it always had plenty of water.

Planting will always work better if you have good root growth before you pot up the plants. This is really nice growth. The stems of the plants are still strong. If the stem was "mooshey" it wouldn't be a good candidate to pot up.

This Klanchoe is all potted and ready to go to it's new home. They are succulents and this has been a nice houseplant. Now I will try to figure out how to make it bloom.