Repotting day plus some stories

Whew! I'm glad THAT project's done! You know how little projects that you need to do just niggle away at you? Until you finally DO THEM? Well, I'd been eyeing my few indoor potted plants, thinking for the longest time that I needed to repot them. 

TODAY WAS THE DAY, DAGGUM IT!

However....

Since I bought a big bag of potting soil at Blanco Gardens this morning, I might as well tackle the plants on the front porch. Which started with a little top dressing on my 11-year-old mandarin tree. That was easy. THEN I pulled the asparagus plant out of its plastic pot. YIKES! OH MY STARS! I'd never seen so many roots in my life in my pot!

After calling Cheryl at Blanco Gardens for her thoughts, I first pulled off roots, then I got a bread knife from the kitchen and sawed off roots. I took at least a third off the bottom and plenty off the sides. It was going back into its old pot, by George.

Asparagus ferns FIGHT BACK! But I didn't care. I was going to FINISH THIS PROJECT. 

And I did. Below are my freshly redone fern and tree. I also repotted the African milk tree (a tall succulent that my uncle gave me in 2002).

And here are my sweet, innocent indoor plants that triggered the project. They're happily repotted, too.

As for the promised stories, the asparagus fern has been with me since my freshman year in college. Okay, I have to say the date now...that would be August 1977. I bought it as a little plant for my dorm room. My roommate Laura let me hang it from the wall. I called it Figgy, short for Figaro. Why Figaro, I can't recall. My suitmate, Becky, HATED the name Figgy. Again, I have no memory why. After my marriage ended in 2002, I left my fern behind with my former husband. I can't remember how much time went by, but he dropped it off one day. I was glad to see her come back. We've been together ever since.

And the original airplane plant, which mothered the airplane plants in the photo above, came to me as a little gift via a Christmas card from a fellow writer I met eons ago when the Internet was first starting up. Her name was Sheryl, too, and we connected through our names. She lived in Philadelphia. Sadly, Sheryl passed in December 2011. I didn't find out about her passing until many months later. We hadn't been in contact for a while and when I tried to contact her, that's when I learned of her untimely death. 

But the special part of the story is that I found Sheryl's sister, Wilma, through Facebook. I messaged her with my condolences, and we became Facebook friends. In January 2013, I mailed her a fern baby off mine in a card. She was thrilled because she remembered Sheryl always having these ferns in her apartment. Wilma calls her fern "Baby" and sends me photos now and then of it. Neat, huh?   

AUGUST 6, 2015, UPDATE

More than two weeks later, and Figgy the fern appears to be doing just fine after my hatchet job!