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‘Miracles of nature’
DAILY NEWS
News
Alumna gives away cuttings from her grandmother’s 50-year-old plants. Spring Awakening
Sumayyah Muhammad Assistant Lifestyles Editor
Students look ahead to the rest of the spring semester.05
After graduating from Ball State, Ann Heintzelman and her husband were looking for their first home when her grandmother gifted her three 20-year-old tropical plants — a snake plant, a spider plant and a philodendron. Heintzelman’s plants all have a story, she said, and she considers them as part of her family. In the 1990s, her philodendron survived when her garage accidently caught on fire one Fourth of July. Her snake plant is now 5 feet tall, planted in a pot that weighs nearly 70 pounds. Currently, Heintzelman’s sunroom in her home is filled with nearly 50 plants, including the ones her grandmother gave her nearly 35 years ago. Heintzelman shares her plant family with others as she uses cuttings from her now 50-year-old plants to give away new plants each year between August and October. “[A spider plant] looks like giant grass, and every now and then, a chute will come off, and a small baby [plant] will be growing on the end of the chute,” Heintzelman said. “It almost looks like a spider on the end of the stem. Break off that new chute, plant it in some soil, and it’ll start a brand new plant.” As an art teacher at Daleville Elementary School, Heintzelman has, for the past 10 years, filled up a box with 20 to 25 plants to place in the school’s teacher’s lounge to let her coworkers have first dibs. Then, she brings her “babies” to her classroom for her students to take home.
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Lifestyles
Nurturing nature Here’s how to take care of your indoor houseplants this winter.09
01.28.2021
KAMRYN TOMLINSON, DN
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