Baby Plants!

  Last spring, my nephew sent me some flower seeds (and starts) from Hawaii.  He lives on an island way out there somewhere and was passing through Hawaii when he saw the packets.  Well, he knew I am game to planting anything so I received the very special parcel from him.  One of the packets contained a leaf.  It had seen better days as the shipping took forever.  The instructions said "Place leaf in a shallow dish and spritz with water."  That was it.  The entire instructions seemed a bit vague but I went with it.  Soon some tiny shoots started coming up from the leaf.  Alrighty, then!  I guess I had plants!

  The plant is a sort of weird plant called a "Hawaiian Air Plant" which is supposedly in the kalanchoe family of plants.  Hey!  I know how to grow those!  The plant did, indeed, grow and flourished in the delipidated (thanks to Hurricane Zeta) greenhouse.  All winter, the plant grew until it was about 3ft in height.  As I struggled to get the plant out of the greenhouse earlier this spring, I inadvertently knocked off a leaf.  It fell to the floor of the now empty greenhouse and was forgotten.  For two months, that thing stayed on the floor with no water, no soil and no care.  Today, I found it and it had baby plants growing out of the leaf!  

  This whole thing made me realize that I need to be very, very careful with the plant.  If it is that easy to start new plants from a single leaf, imagine what would happen if the entire plant was strewn about the hillside...say by a hurricane.  The property would be soon taken over by an invasive (yet, pretty) plant!  

  Backing up to earlier in the spring, when I took the plant out of the greenhouse, I stuck it on the back porch.  It never occurred to me that it may present a problem.  After finding that leaf (babies) in the greenhouse, I checked and, sure enough, the recent storms had broken some leaves.  There were LOTS of babies!  Oh, no.  What had I done!  

 

  It appears that if I am to raise this plant, it had better be an indoor plant where I can keep watch on those baby-making machines!  The fallen leaves will have to be destroyed by some means if I do not want the world (or at least the Bayou area) covered in Hawaiian Air Plants!  Happy growing...I guess!