Paws for Effect

Blessed by warm, sunny weather and the sight of spring blossoms, I boldly decided to divide our kangaroo paws to try and get better flowers to make Kangaeroo Corner look even more effective.

I’ve grown these kangaroo paw from seed that I brought back from Australia when I visited in September 2002.

I didn’t think I’d be able to grow them, having never even conceived of the idea before getting a garden in 2022, but decided to give it a try anyway.

I brought back dozens of varieties of seed, but the only ones I really, desperately wanted to succeed were the kangaroo paw, given the name and theme of the site and the garden.

And that’s pretty much exactly what I got, though there were a few delightful bonuses chucked in, too.

The kangaroo paw actually thrived, and I’ve been able to give away many to friends and neighbors.

And, having shown their hardiness by getting through the winter, I noticed that many of the kangaroo paw were good enough to split and grow even more plants.

Kangaroo paw can easily be propagated, apparently, as they have rhizomes…or so the various gardening videos on YouTube tell me.

So I took the most seemingly sickly, unsightly plant I had, dug it up and split the roots into six different pots.

Almost a day later, the two runts already seem to have failed, but it’s too early to quit yet.

And riding on the wave of over-confidence, I removed all the cuttings I’d put in a huge pot and replaced them with a kangaroo paw in the hope that the extra room would give it extra impetus to thrive.

All in all, it was a weekend of many experiments. It will be interesting to see how they pan out.