Ok, so my Aloe plant came up with a new shoot a few weeks ago (yey!) I thought about re-planting it and splitting the new shoot off into a new baba aloe but thought it'd be better to let it mature a little first so it'd be more mature to cope with being re-planted (ok, i sound like I know what I'm talking about here but err, I don't.) Anyway, I decided this evening while watering the big aloe that I'd spend a few minutes re-planting it and letting this new shoot grow free. So downstairs I ventured, new pot in hand (ahem, an old CD tower case) and went into the garden to get some soil.

Everything was going just fine, I'd managed to get the roots out of the orange/brown pot it was in and started to shake the looser soil off which was settled around the top of the pot so the roots were holding the rest of the soil together. Next I tried to follow the new shoot's roots so I could plant as much of the root as possible. As it happened the root was mostly entwined around the outside of the base as if it were following the confines of the circular base of the pot. So I slowly start to turn the aloe 'round as I attempted to loosen the intertwined root. After about the third turn I hear a soft, fleshy crunchy snap. OH NOES! The new shoot had caught on the old pot and had become dismembered just two centimetres below the root. My heart sinks. Thoughts of Aloe CPR rush to my head. Will mouth-to-mouth work? At that moment I would've done anything to make the wee shoot better and fixed and happy and lush. Alas, moments later as I hold the limp shoot in my hand, reality sinks in and the slow realisation that the poor blighter probably isn't going to make it washes over me. What am I going to tell its parent?!

Rather oddly (as if none of this is odd enough already) my first action was to grab the new (makeshift) pot, frantically stuff it with as much topsoil as my shaky, soil-ridden, Aloe-sap-sodden hands can grasp and delicatedly embed the wounded shoot in the centre and pad soil around it. All the while muttering "I'm so sorry…". Having been somewhat preoccupied with the little 'un I had almost forgotten about the big aloe from whence this hapless creation had sprung. So I immediately spring to my feet and proceeded to re-pot and re-soil the larger of the species hoping that the whole experience hasn't been so traumatic for it that it relenquishes the will to live.

After potting them both in their new homes and after the unfortunate incident which separated them I took them back upstairs and watered them while sending positive vibes to them both (especially to the little one) and hoping to the Universal forces that they'll (we'll) give them both the energy and spirit to overcome this tragic ordeal. And now I appeal to you.. please send positive vibes and thoughts and general well-beingness to my Aloe plant In the belief that it'll see the light of day for a long time to come and produce lots of wee Aloe shoots of it's own!