To start, let us appreciate this viewpoint of Sebastian having an Out Of Body Experience during bath-time.

Same day, I realized I had forgotten to keep the ongoing bath full for this aloe leaf propagation. It seems one can become blind to the everyday sights. I may need to develop a method of keeping track of each plant on my caretaking list.

I HAVE kept up the water level for my very first snake plant propagation and now, six months after starting this experiment, we are seeing a new leaf nubblin growing! So much excitement!

I’m starting to question if oregano (or maybe just this species of oregano) can be propagated. It’s been a couple weeks (I think. I don’t seem to have made a record, so I cannot confirm), but there has been 0 root growth. The little guy seems happy enough, so we’ll keep hoping.

I did decide to interfere with a tradescantia zebrina propagation, whose stem seems to have curled up and out of the waterline.

The best course of action looked to be removal of the lower leaf, so that the plant could sit lower in the water, keeping the stem-root section submerged.

Unfortunately, the stem snapped off when I tried to peel off the leaf. Alas, sometimes things don’t work out.

Luckily, many cases of failure can still be salvaged. I tested out a less-than-ideal propagation with a mint cutting, which did not have much leaves in the top node, but barely any stem below the second node. I left the leaves in the second node, and hoped the tiny bit of stem beneath could be enough for root development. This plan did not pan out, and the little guy went full limp at the lack of hydration.

So I removed the second node leaves and popped him back in the water. He seems to have perked up and already has some wee roots. The propagation success with so little leaves might only apply to hardy and fast-growing plants like mint, since we had some failure with a similar setup of the Purple Heart last month. I’ll take the wins where I can.

I moved the mint parent plant closer to the window, to see just how fast this lady can grow. I forgot to incorporate wind, so she grew fast and leggy. I’ll need to trim her back and try again with more air circulation (or occasional ruffling with my hand). For now, it was fascinating to see the plant so obviously curved so as to maximize sunlight hitting the leaves, like a sunflower turning to face the rays.

Out in the garden, the shaded iris bed has not fared well. In my indecision on when to deadhead the withering blooms, I doomed the stalks to a limp afterlife. The fallen stalks also damaged some violet stems, which overall seem to be doing well, but also appear to have some holes in the leaves. Fearing pests, I will neem the leaves and hope for the best.

And finally, the other big news: a baby bell pepper! Since I never did trim off the flowers, one started to make a fruit offering…ahem, offspring. Once again, I could nip this in the bud, so to speak, to help the plant conserve energy for a bigger production later. But I am curious to see what happens. And I realized that I can afford the mistake. I do not need the food (thank goodness, else I’d starve by my own ‘black thumb’), and it cost me less than five quid to obtain this hearty fella, which while not negligible, is within my hobbies budget. The fact that I have a hobbies budget, of whatever size, is quite the privilege. I think so often, the fear of failure arises because we cannot afford the loss of time, money, investment, etc. And yet, pursuing curiosity, learning the results of failure, seems to be one of the most effective means of gaining knowledge.