15 + 105 points
Document Growth by Dax Tran-Caffee
December 3rd, 2008 8:56 PM
This is 'lucky' bamboo.
I plucked four shoots from various potted 'lucky' bamboo at the Home Depot down the street. Contrary to my initial assumption about this plant, 'lucky' bamboo grows very, very slowly. Consequently, this project took quite a lot longer than I had intended. However, I am no quitter: after one year of documentation, I am hereby posting my results.
As a note, this was an extremely meditative, enriching process. Besides that this was the first plant I have ever raised from a seed/shoot, it was fantastic to stay with a group of plants, observing the slow death of 3/4 of them, and the eventual growth of the final shoot into a healthy adult plant.
As of today, December 3, 2008, the bamboo is 8 inches tall and has 15 leaves. Hooray!
I plucked four shoots from various potted 'lucky' bamboo at the Home Depot down the street. Contrary to my initial assumption about this plant, 'lucky' bamboo grows very, very slowly. Consequently, this project took quite a lot longer than I had intended. However, I am no quitter: after one year of documentation, I am hereby posting my results.
As a note, this was an extremely meditative, enriching process. Besides that this was the first plant I have ever raised from a seed/shoot, it was fantastic to stay with a group of plants, observing the slow death of 3/4 of them, and the eventual growth of the final shoot into a healthy adult plant.
As of today, December 3, 2008, the bamboo is 8 inches tall and has 15 leaves. Hooray!
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votelater3 comment(s)
posted by rongo rongo on December 6th, 2008 8:19 PM
Wow, wonderful plant documentation. And way to stick with a task.
To be plant geeky, I have to point out that lucky bamboo is not actually bamboo, which may be why it grew slower than expected...though actually, even bamboo's reputation for being a plant that could eat New York is only true for some varieties.
posted by Dax Tran-Caffee on December 7th, 2008 7:13 AM
No way! This makes so much more sense now.
Hmph. Well... I love Dracaenas too.
I've never been much enamored with this task, as it is difficult to find some awesomely creative or difficult-to-document growings-on. But just the slow and deliberate, even loving documentation here shows that there is a rich inner-life to some tasks, and the end result needn't be startling to belie beauty and value in the praxis itself. Beautiful.