Urban Habitat

So, about 5 years ago, just before I started college, my dad and I put together a sort of terrarium with a couple of cactuses/succulents I’d gotten at a local market and an aloe plant. This is what it looked like when I went home for Christmas, after about five years of happy growth thanks to my father:

As you can see, some plants needed moving around! There are more than three plants in there at this point with propagations! My dad’s managed to successfully propagate that cactus quite a few times, and there are a few well-rooted baby cactuses living along the bottom.

Now, my dad doesn’t have any of the li’l houseplant tools that I have. So to poke around and gently find the root structure of and remove the aloe from the terrarium, I used a flathead screwdriver. Unfortunately a few newly-planted cactus propagates got shifted out of their spots when I got the aloe out, but that plant should be hardy enough that now they’re back in the soil, they should be totally fine.

Now, my favorite part of this whole thing: check out that li’l baby piece of aloe growing right out of the bottom of the original plant! I did my best not to bury it in the new pot while simultaneously providing enough soil for that ridiculously lengthy aloe to sit comfortably.

My dad also didn’t have chopsticks or dowl rods and thought plastic forks would look tacky, so we used a few river stones to prop up the big aloe. Not too many, as to not hold too much water in the soil/humidity, but enough. As the little aloe gets bigger, Dad’ll add dirt.

The newly-homed aloe and terrarium were returned to their spot on my childhood nightstand under a grow light and near a window, and the aloe was given some food and water; they will hopefully thrive over many more happy years.