Potting Up Indoor Plants and Dividing Aloe Vera

In the cold days of winter going outside into the garden is not high on everyone's agenda, but there are really a lot of very useful gardening jobs to do in winter, especially on a sunny afternoon. For such a long time I have been meaning to repot some of my indoor plants, and today was the day. First I collected the pots. I am still not buying anything this year if I can possibly avoid it, so I fossicked through my dwindling collection of terracotta pots and found some the right size. I then prowled around the house to see what else I could find, and took down these blue and white Chinese porcelain pots from the top of my bookshelf. They have been up there doing nothing but looking pretty for years, so now it's time for them to do some actual work.

I have a collection of pieces of broken terracotta pots that I keep to use as covers for the drainage holes in pots. These stop the potting mix from falling out of the pots, and also slow down the water as it drains out of the pot, to keep the soil damp for longer.

This is my poor aloe vera plant. I bought it two years ago when I moved to this house, and it has been in its tiny nursery pot ever since. Luckily aloe vera thrives on neglect, and it has grown several babies. It really is time to separate them now though, so I carefully pried the plantlets apart.

Now I have four aloe plants instead of one! I love plants - they are so generous! Two of these plantlets also have tiny babies, so in a year or so I will be able to divide them again. If you are doing this, make sure that each piece has some roots attached.

Here are my potted babies in their new cosy blankets of fresh soil. I love the shiny leaves of the fiddle-leaf fig. It too was living in its tiny nursery pot for over two years, so should make enormous growth as spring comes along. The two devil's ivy plants came from cuttings from my friend Carla. She cut the stem just an inch above and below a leaf. I left them to root in a glass of water, then potted them up in potting mix for a few months. One is now growing a new leaf, and both had roots sticking out of the bottom of their pots, so I knew it was time to pot them on. I gave one back to Carla, one to my friend Lillian who is making a jungle in her bathroom, and kept two to drape down from high shelves. Devil's ivy drapes beautifully in long, leafy vines. Carla's cat kept chewing her plant, which was why she had to trim it. I use about half potting mix and half compost in my indoor plant pots. I find that all potting mix dries out too much.

The aloe vera I potted up in succulent mix, which drains extra well, and is more bark-like than regular potting mix. Ok, so when I said I am not buying anything, clearly I bought potting mix and succulent mix. I would love to learn to make my own. It's on the list. That would eliminate more plastic bags from my life. But it's food really, isn't it? Not things. Plant food..

 I watered all the pots with a solution of seaweed concentrate. Three capfuls of seaweed concentrate to a nine litre watering can full of water. Seaweed concentrate stimulates root growth. While the pots are draining I get out my seashell collection to make a decorative mulch for the aloes. My seashell collection is the result of many years of family trips to the beach, and all those buckets-full that come home with the children. When they get tired of the shells (two days on average) I store them in a big pot in the shed. They make a very nice mulch for indoor plants.

Now to find new homes for the plants indoors. If you bring terracotta pots indoors it is important to remember to use a glazed saucer as terracotta saucers are porous and will ruin the surface you have it on. I have a stack of plates in the back of the cupboard that are chipped or cracked and use them as plant saucers. I am so happy to have repotted my plants at last. It may have taken two years, but it did happen in the end, and now they should all be happy for another two years at least..