For Sarah, who would prefer if I unplugged a bit.
Less than a two minute read.
In August, a tiny specimen of the evergreen succulent sempervivum died in my care while I tried to grow it in a tiny pot. It’s now November, and there are two interesting developments: First, I planted another one cut from the same donor parent plant and it’s thriving; and second, a raccoon mauled the donor and forced me to pot several more child specimens against my will and out of season.
The redemption story is straightforward. Sempervivum is also known as Hens and Chicks because it grows as a dense cluster of florets (the “hen”) that sends runners underground to sprout smaller, baby florets (the “chicks”). On my first attempt at separating a chick and growing it in a tiny pot, I picked a tiny floret that had sprouted off to the side from the main cluster. It was only a few centimeters in diameter. It died, most likely from being jostled around and uprooted in the tiny pot before it ever had a chance to establish itself. This time, I picked a much larger chick. It’s doing fine ten weeks after transplanting.
The raccoon story is not straightforward. In hindsight, I’m a bit embarrassed that I leaned so heavily on Google Gemini to help me grow a plant. On August 10th at 6:42PM, I asked how to keep foxes and raccoons out of my outdoor potted plants. As a follow up, I asked if there is any benefit to having a raccoon mess with my plant, and Gemini responded that there is not.
About a week ago, I was walking the grounds and discovered several large, healthy chicks uprooted and sitting on top of the main cluster of florets in my donor sempervivum. There was a hole in the dirt where the uprooted bits had been, which was a telltale sign that a fox or raccoon had been digging for grubs in the soft soil. Sempervivum are the perfect plant to have been mangled in this way, though. Four perfectly excavated florets ripped up with the roots still attached were sitting waiting to be planted in their own pots. It was a propagation job I was hesitant to do because I didn’t want to mess up the healthy part of the plant. Now my mind was made up for me, and I had no choice but to divide the plant.
I’m not religious, and I also don’t believe in the horticultural sentience of raccoons. How else could I take this situation, though? It’s clear that the living, breathing, physically real animals with whom I share a yard helped with the gardening. Maybe even on purpose.
I can’t think of a better way to stick it to artificial intelligence.