I hadn't had houseplants at Swan's End in many years. In the condo I used to own, I had lots of thriving plants. I rather prided myself on my indoor gardening ability in those years, but the fact was my plants did so well because they got loads of light. One end of my living room was almost all window with a southeastern exposure, which created an environment for plants that was one stop short of a greenhouse.
After five and a half years of condo life, I moved to the three-bedroom semi-detached I now own in 2006, bringing all my plants with me. Swan's End has no side windows, and mostly smallish windows at the front and the back of the house. Also, as I was now living at street level and close to a busy street with a lot of foot traffic, I preferred to keep my bedroom and living room curtains closed. Over the next few years, my plants all dwindled and died. I bought new plants, and they also died. I bought specifically low-light plants, and they died too. I came to realize that I could only have plants in a few places in the house: by the kitchen window, and in the attic casement window. In 2009, after three years of struggling with a chronic and horrifyingly severe mouse problem, I adopted my cat Trilby, who turned out to be a dedicated hunter with a voracious appetite, which was great mouse control-wise, but not so good for my plants, as he would routinely attack and eat them. A few years later, after my last houseplant died, I gave up entirely on keeping houseplants, telling myself I would have to content myself with outdoor gardening in the summer. Sometimes I would start bulbs in the attic window in late winter, keeping the door to the attic shut so Trilby could not molest them, but that was all.
And now, in 2026, I had a plant again. I was glad to get it. Aloe veras are useful for first-aid and cosmetic purposes, and I could keep it by the kitchen window without fear, as since September 2021, Trilby has been in his resting place underneath the apricot tree in the back garden, where he loved to play and try to catch birds and butterflies.
I very soon got on the job of repotting the aloe vera, because the tiny flowerpot it came in had no drainage holes and was just intended to be temporary. I checked to see if the old cupboard in the lean-to had any 4" pots. I had just one, a thin plastic number of the type that comes with a new plant. My self-watering pots were all 6" or larger. I repotted the aloe vera into the 4" pot I had, but soon found I didn't like having to water it daily. I did some internet searches to see where I could buy a 4" self-watering pot, and could only find some I didn't like or that had to be bought in lots of five. Then it occurred to me that perhaps I could rig up a self-watering mechanism for the aloe vera, using materials I had around the house.
This was my first attempt at creating a self-watering pot. I don't usually buy pop, but I had bought one bottle of club soda to make pitchers of Emerald Isle Mocktail for my Irish supper party, so I did some surgery on it once it was empty. It was utilitarian, but I didn't care for the look of it. I also used kitchen twine for the wick, which worked after a fashion but was not ideal. The soil was clearly getting some water via the twine, but always looked a little on the dry side to me. I decided I needed to upgrade the wick, and also wanted to find a way to use my favourite flowerpot, a 6" enamelled number I'd bought at a thrift shop years before.
Cotton is supposed to be the best fibre for self-watering wicks, as it's very absorbent. I had cotton yarn in my stash, and used 10 grams of it to knit an 8" I-cord for the wick. This was definitely my fastest and easiest knitting project of the year. It may also have been the most genuinely useful.
To thread the wick through the soil, I stuck a crochet hook down into the aloe vera pot until it emerged from one of the drainage holes, hooked one end of the knitted wick onto the crochet hook, and pulled the wick up through the pot until it was just below the surface of the soil.
I put an old margarine tub in the flowerpot, which protected the metal flowerpot from rusting away and created a reservoir for the water. Then I just needed a way to keep the aloe vera pot above the waterline. A rock from the garden served the purpose.
This is a photo of the aloe vera as of September 7th, 2026. As you can see if you compare it to the older photos of it above, it has grown quite a bit in just over five months, and it looks healthy and happy. I think it should be ready to graduate to one of my 6" self-watering pots by its first birthday. I'll still get to use this enamelled flowerpot, as the 6" self-watering pot will fit inside it.
And I'd say something about how I now have renewed faith in my gardening abilities if I weren't afraid my woefully neglected front and back gardens would respond by staging some sort of vengeful Day of the Triffids-style attack on the house.
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