Office plants are interesting to me–they often have a history longer than any employees that remain. At my last job, there was a philodendron plant that was left behind by a long-time employee. I inherited it and kept it going for 19 years. When I left that workplace, I left the plant behind. It felt like it belonged to the business and never to me, and I hoped that someone else would connect with that plant the way I had. It always reminded me of that first boss who was an amazing mentor.

At my current job, an employee left and his office was vacant for a month or so. When I went in to clean the office up for a new employee, there was a tree inside looking pretty sad. I wasn’t familiar with the species, except I knew people called it a Money Tree. It had five trunks, all braided together.

The tree was very leggy, with few green leaves. I decided to take some drastic action, so I cut two of the trunks down significantly and made cuttings of the pieces that I removed. I knew that the tree needed to be repotted, so I decided to make some compost right in my office to help kick-start the tree when I moved it to a new pot.

For the compost, I took a large ziplock bag and filled it halfway with potting soil, then I put in a little organic fertilizer and then I cut up all those brown leaves from the Pachira and put them in the bag, along with orange peels and apple cores from my lunches. As leaves died on the tree, I kept cutting them up and adding them to the bag. I was amazed at how fast bacteria developed and decay began. And the smell wasn’t bad because of the orange peels, although my coworkers were always accusing me of eating oranges, even when I wasn’t. The smell was pretty strong.

In the meantime, the tree struggled along. With regular watering and a little feeding, it started to put out new leaves and the trunks that had been shortened sprouted new leaves, as well. In addition, the cuttings from the tree seemed to be doing pretty well.

After about two months of the soil composting, I ordered a plastic pot off of Amazon and some good Espoma soil. I put a thin layer of soil in the bottom of the new pot, then added a bit more organic fertilizer and the compost bag contents. I yanked the tree out of its clay pot (not easy) and moved it to the new pot, filling in with more potting soil.

After a month in the new pot, this is what the tree looks like.

The tree is now a rich, dark green and the leaves are three times as big as they were when I first found the tree. As the pruned trunks grow, they will fill in the canopy and make it even more handsome.

My boss informed me that this tree has been around the office, including in her office and others. I may return it to her office and then grow the cuttings on for my own office. It has been fun to make this tree over and trust my instincts to cut it back and repot it. The office compost was especially fun and interesting, though I would double-bag it if I did it again!