Big...But Satisfying Job

This foxtail fern and I go way back. I've blogged about my journey with it over and over....and you know I'm tempted to revisit all that again. But I'll spare you the ancient history...and just share the recent history. I'm pretty tickled with the plant...and the big job I took on today. 

Read on only if you're interested. I like telling stories...but this one is probably a little confusing and ridiculous. Maybe that's why I like it.

Last year I planted the fern in a moss basket that I placed in this fabulous antique red metal laundry cart that Patty gave me. I thought I could bring the whole thing inside for the winter and water as usual with just a drip pan underneath. Wrong!

The water went everywhere which didn't matter when it was outside...but not in the dining room. So I repotted it in the biggest pot I had for the winter. I had to squeezed all the roots in...but it did just fine. 

As a matter of fact it looked so good this spring that I didn't want to repot it. But the pot was ugly...and I wanted it up off the ground at my front door. The big plastic pot was too big to fit inside the tall blue ceramic that I wanted to use. 

So I came up with a solution that I thought was brilliant. I painted the rim of the plastic pot to match the ceramic pot so it could sit right on top. It worked perfectly!

I remember cramming all those roots into this pot....so I knew it needed to be split and repotted. And I wanted it to have the winter to recover from that. THAT'S what I did today....and it was a big...but satisfying job.

This is what the pot looked like.

It took a bit of work to wrestle it out of the pot...but my favorite soil knife helped.

I use this soil knife for everything. It's my absolute favorite tool. I use it for planting...weeding...and wrestling plants out of pots. 

The serrated edge is perfect for dividing plants.

One looks pretty good....and one looks pretty sad. The good one will winter in the dining room and fit nicely inside the tall blue ceramic pot next spring. The sad one will live under my table in front of my studio window....that's my sad little plant nursery. I may cut the branches off let it start over. I know from my history with this fern...that sad can eventually lead to fabulous....and there are plenty of good roots in that pot wo work with.

(Here's a little of the ancient history with some old sad to fabulous photos.)

One last photo from this year! I wanted a better view of the laundry cart...which held begonias this year. Phew! Thanks for hanging in there!