![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5577-225x300.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1\")
I noticed some weeks ago that it had dropped a random leaf on the windowsill, and on closer inspection, the leaf had some little wiry bits coming out the bottom. On a hunch, I put it in a pot and hey presto!\n
![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5426-225x300.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1\")
<\/p>\nIt\u2019ll be ten years this month since my mother died suddenly.<\/p>\n
My daughter and I had just come home from visiting a family whose son had recently died in a tragic accident, so when my brother rang me to give me the news I struggled to take it in. I remember crying out \u201cNo!\u201d like I just couldn\u2019t accept that it was true. He\u2019s recently sent me several boxes of her stuff to store, and I\u2019ve been very slowly going through it.<\/p>\n
I had completely forgotten that she belonged to both the orchid society and the cactus and succulent club. I hope I\u2019ve mentioned before what an incredible woman my mother was, and I\u2019d be very proud to be turning into her as I get older, although preferably without the asthma and hypertension. I have indeed recently developed an interest in potted plants, and succulents in particular. This isn\u2019t only because they are the only plants I can reliably keep alive, but it\u2019s related. They are so determined to live, unlike something like a maidenhair fern that will go into a death spiral if you just look at it the wrong way.
\nTake this fellow as an example:<\/p>\n
I noticed some weeks ago that it had dropped a random leaf on the windowsill, and on closer inspection, the leaf had some little wiry bits coming out the bottom. On a hunch, I put it in a pot and hey presto!
\n<\/p>\n
Shortly afterwards, I noticed what looked like a tiny baby plant dangling from one of the original plant\u2019s branches.<\/p>\n
So, that original plant has two babies from different methods, and that\u2019s without ever flowering. Of course, we get parthenogenesis in the animal kingdom too, as my poor rose bushes would attest, under their load of aphids. But it\u2019s still pretty neat. In fact, I\u2019m having a lot more luck with house plants than I used to. Am I finally growing into my inherited green thumb or is it more pragmatic plant choice? Maybe it\u2019s time to put myself to the test with my mother\u2019s other plant interest, orchids. I realise this isn\u2019t the most engrossing post I\u2019ve ever written, though. Do I need to promise not <\/em>to keep you up to date with my adventures in the plant kingdom?<\/p>\n <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" It\u2019ll be ten years this month since my mother died suddenly.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_feature_clip_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2},"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-12694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/pa8Ukf-3iK","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":7470,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2022\/01\/30\/rip-quarantini\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":0},"title":"RIP Quarantini","author":"Interloper11","date":"January 30, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Another of our fish has died. Not a major tragedy in the scheme of things, but still sad for us, and a bit of a mystery. A few weeks ago I found the body of Tequila Sunrise floating in the pond. This morning it was Quarantini. Both of these fish\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/01\/89B5EB77-8A9C-4BF0-9664-5AC7FF609D47-225x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":4274,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2020\/02\/24\/stylish-2\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":1},"title":"Stylish","author":"Interloper11","date":"February 24, 2020","format":false,"excerpt":"The nurse next to me in the changing room was doing a very thorough blow drying job on her hair before putting her theatre cap on. Seems a complete waste to time to me, considering she\u2019ll have hat hair at the end of the day no matter what she does.\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":11402,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2025\/02\/01\/dabbling\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":2},"title":"Dabbling","author":"Interloper11","date":"February 1, 2025","format":false,"excerpt":"I have discovered something about my dogs\u2019 arseholes recently. In the few minutes before they\u2019re going to do a turd, their arse stretches out and grows red, in a similar way to how a baby\u2019s head crowns just before it gets delivered. I must confess I\u2019ve only read about this\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":10318,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/07\/11\/little-car-update\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":3},"title":"Little car update","author":"Interloper11","date":"July 11, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"After my post bemoaning the lack of small post war European \u201cEveryman\u201d cars, I\u2019ve seen quite a few little Fiats around with a similar shape to the Bambino, although the engine size is generally 550 cc now instead of the old 500. Inflation I suppose. What I had completely forgotten\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_0145-1024x466.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_0145-1024x466.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/07\/IMG_0145-1024x466.jpeg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x"},"classes":[]},{"id":8718,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2023\/02\/20\/lifted\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":4},"title":"Lifted","author":"Interloper11","date":"February 20, 2023","format":false,"excerpt":"I only discovered eyebrow tinting a few months ago, but I love it. I\u2019ve always been a bit slow with beauty tricks. My daughter had to educate me about eyebrow pencils a couple of years ago. I blame my mother, who was too busy being a full time psychiatrist and\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/02\/3A895290-D53E-4ACE-B86F-F722933FF15A-225x300.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":9948,"url":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/2024\/04\/03\/book-review\/","url_meta":{"origin":12694,"position":5},"title":"Book review","author":"Interloper11","date":"April 3, 2024","format":false,"excerpt":"No, of course it\u2019s not a book review. If you want a proper one of those, you can find it here: https:\/\/www.ketebooks.co.nz\/all-book-reviews\/on-call-stories-from-my-life-as-a-surgeon-a-daughter-and-a-mother It\u2019s the book I mentioned a few days ago, written by a surgeon I\u2019ve worked with a few times in the past, most notably on that tragic weekend\u2026","rel":"","context":"Similar post","block_context":{"text":"Similar post","link":""},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/04\/IMG_7582-300x151.jpeg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]}],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=12694"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/12694\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=12694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=12694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/accordingtokirsty.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=12694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5427-225x300.jpeg?resize=225%2C300&ssl=1\")
So, I potted that one as well and it is also thriving.<\/p>\n![\"\"](\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/accordingtokirsty.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/03\/IMG_5571-scaled-e1772579540519-300x225.jpeg?resize=300%2C225&ssl=1\")