Old growth, new growth

In the dream, i am working at the job i've been at for the last 20+ years. The environment is possibly the first facility. I think that because plants seem to be the theme of the dream and i had many plants in my space in that first building. I loved my job then. Anyways... i've been away for quite a while and realize i haven't watered my plants in forever. (This is a fairly common theme in my dreams - at least four or five times a year. Usually though the plants are in my home environment.) As i begin to water my garden of plants i see that mostly the plants have thrived in spite of the neglect and i'm pleased. One plant, i think it's a type of palm? seems like it's doing well. As i'm looking at it an avocado pit that i'd planted sprouts in front of my eyes! I actually hear it "sproing!" out of the pit. There's another avocado pit but it's rotten and not going to grow so i lift it out of the pot. I notice that the palm is actually so overgrown that the nice part i'm seeing is the newer part and the older part has become too heavy and is actually a burden to the plant so i decide to cut off the overgrown heavy part so the new growth can become healthier and stronger. I have some sort of cutting tool - it seems like a wire cutter or something along those lines. I begin cutting and hacking through the old growth. It's VERY thick and i begin to feel sick in my stomach because it reminds me of cutting through a human arm. The stem even seems to have a bone in it. After i've removed the big part of the plant i see that the avocado sprout is wilting from too much water so i pour out excess water from that pot into some other pots that contain plants.