Who doesn't love adding more plants to their decoration?
When you are good at taking care of plants, they grow and multiply making your home blossom. Especially if the plant is a Pilea, also called a Chinese Money Plant. You might get the cutest, little plant babies, which decorate the room once more or can be gifts for friends and family. However, buying new pots every time your Pilea has babies can be rather expensive – in the right circumstances that might happen quite often. So why not let the plant babies grow strong in your used dietary supplement containers? We've done that in the office, and it's really easy:
All you need is:
- A scouring sponge and possibly some cooking oil to remove the product label
- Your used, emptied, cleaned container
- Plant cuttings
- Leca
- Potting soil
- Optional: scissors, string, paper or carton for decoration and a piece of string to fasten it to the container
How to:
- Enjoy the delicious gummies or tablets until finished.
- Clean the container and remove the adhered product label. The glue might stick but is very easy to rub off with a scouring pad and some ordinary cooking oil. Make sure to thoroughly clean the container with detergent to ensure that all greasy residue from the cooking oil is removed.
- Gently cut the small, new baby plants off from the mother plant with a sharp knife. On Pilea plants, gently grip a stem with your fingers and move them towards the place where it emerges from the mother plant. That is where you make the cut.
- If you want, you can let the new cuttings root for a week or two in a bit of water in a small bowl, a glass or a vase. Make sure the roots are covered in water all the time. If you don’t have the patience for that, just go ahead and plant the sprouts immediately. However, we recommend that you allow them to establish their roots before placing them in the container, because this makes it easier for them to manage the “difficult” separation from the mother plant.
- Sprinkle the bottom of the container with a thin layer of leca or pebbles with a diameter of around 0.5-1 cm.
- Then pour soil into the container almost to the top and press it lightly so that the soil is not too loose.
- Place the plant in the container and gently press down the soil around its roots, so it stands by itself. Remember to gently water it.
- We have decorated our plants with a strip of paper and a piece of string but they are cute even without.
- Voilà! You have now planted your cute, little plant babies.
