Meet Bob

This is Bob.  I have an inexplicable attachment to Bob, and I don’t know why.  Bob was a $5 discount fern I bought maybe seven years ago at Home Depot.

(His name is Bob because his form reminds me of Sideshow Bob’s hair on The Simpsons.)

Bob in his $5 garbage can from Goodwill. 

These are some of my favorite inexpensive plant holders!

Because I like to save money (and I love to garden), every fall I haul all my containers of plants inside the garage.  First I dig out any non-hardy bulbs to bag up and save till spring, but then I just leave the rest of the plants as they are.  I am always amazed at how many perennials (and annuals) will grow back again for me in the spring with so little effort.  (Hence the money saved.)

For some reason Bob gets special treatment.  Bob is in a handful of plants that get to come inside my house for the winter (with the tropical plants).  Ferns are not really great indoor plants.  When they get a little dry, as they inevitably do, they have a tendency to drop tiny brown leaves all over the place.  I have vacuumed quite a few of these.

Bob used to decorate a corner of my kitchen, and he’d get special lights at Christmas.  (He looked quite beautiful, actually.)  One year, when I had the crazy inspiration that my son should learn to take care of a living thing, I made him put Bob in his room with instructions to open his bedroom blinds every morning (so Bob could have light) and water him occasionally.  Needless to say, Bob barely made it through the winter.

When Bob seemed way too big for his container, I googled “dividing ferns” and lo and behold, discovered that yes, ferns can be divided, you just have to saw their root ball in half.  And so Bob had a baby named Bill.  They both looked a little scraggly at first after the division, but after about 6 weeks they had filled out nicely.

The problem is, now both Bill AND Bob need to be divided again.  And I’m not sure how many ferns can fit in my house…

And what was the point of this?  I guess that one thing I love about so many plants is their ability to generate new ones for free.  (And it’s fun to try!)  That, and to bring this back around to Goodwill – it is amazing how many awesome and inexpensive plant containers you can find at Goodwill.

I put Bill in a metal trash can from Goodwill and drilled a few drainage holes in the bottom.  He looks really elegant in his trash can, don’t you think?