Seed Pods.

Texas Bluebonnet adds bright blue color in my garden, and I am glad I grew them.  Even now in late April, Texas Bluebonnet is still blooming profusely, but some of the early bloomers started having their babies.

 Look how pretty these flowers are.  So blue and so pretty.

New buds pop up continuously.

There are many seed pods on the flowers that started earlier.  There will be many seeds to seed next year :)

Upright and Blue

136 days after seeding, my first Texas Bluebonnet flower finally bloomed! 

The bud on March 5 - Slightly showing the color.  Bud is pointing down.

Bud on March 7.  Still pointing down but shows slightly darker blue than two days ago.

Bud on March 12.  Flower has started to open, but not quite 100%.

Contrary to my concern, the flower is upright and perfectly blue.  I see more buds in the yard - I am excited, can you tell?

Texas Bluebonnet Update

Texas Bluebonnet is doing great, and the bud started to show the color; it's really blue.  Although I am anxious to see the flower, like, now, I've learned it takes a long time a bud fully blooms, so I will have to be patient for a little while. 

Hmmm....it's pointed down, like grapes, though - will it bloom upright like the picture on the seed package?

Texas Bluebonnet Has a Bud!

It has been 4 months after I seeded Texas Bluebonnette on 10/29/10, and the largest one now has a bud!  This experience of growing plants from seeds has been teaching me lots of things, but beyond anything else, I enjoy seeing changes each plant shows every day.

7 seedlings survived, and this one is the largest Texas Bluebonnet plants in my yard.  At this time, I didn't notice a bud.  There is a tiny plant one right next to it; can you see it?  

2 days after I took the above picture, I noticed a bud.  It's amazing how fast a plant can grow when it's happy.

Texas Blue Bonnet Update.

It's been just a little over a month since the last post on this plant, and Texas Blue Bonnet seedlings are doing well and growing faster than other plants I am currently growing.  I just learned something new about this plant, too.  It's a kind of Lupines!  How tall will these be?

At the end of November, only a couple of small true leaves were shooting out.

In 2 weeks from the above picture, more true leaves grew out. These are really, really cute looking leaves.  The first two true leaves were split in 3, but newer one are split in 5 sections; foliage is hairy but soft.  The white stuff around the plant is snail bait.

About 3 weeks past since the above picture.  As you can see, more leaves are growing.  I think they look like baby hands.

Texas Bluebonnet

I wanted something showy and slightly taller but not too tall.  I love the color blue, so Texas Bluebonnet seemed to be a good choice.  After I bought the seeds, I learned that this is the State Flower of Texas (thus the name?). 

These are Texas Bluebonnet seeds.  These are pretty large, and they are all in different colors.  Easy to see, easty to sow :)  I sowed them in peat pallets on 10-29-2010.

On 11-04-10, 6 days later, seedlings started to emerge.  Wow, these seedlings are large!!

I forgot to take a picture of the young seedlings :(  26 days after seeding, very very cute true leaves started to grow and the roots grew much fast, so I tranplanted the seedlings in the plastic sour cream tub.

4 days after transplant (30 days after seeds being sowed), the seedlings seem to be very happy - and the roots are already peeking out from the bottom of the plastic tub!

One month (31 days) after seeding.  Since I saw the root tips peeking out of the bottom of the plastic tab, I decided to plant them in my garden, their permanent home.  Geez, this plant grows so fast!   I scattered some snail baits as I've seen so many young seedlings vanished overnight in the past.  My fingers are crossed for these to survive the predators!

SEED INFORMATION:

*  Recommended planting season for San Diego: September -March - I planted in October

Seeds I bought: Ferry Morse's TEXAS BLUEBONNET 

Seeds bought from: Home Depot

Origination of the seeds: USA

According to the package:

*  Days to germination: 15-25 days - Mine took 6 days!!

*  Days to bloom: 60-90 days - Mine took 136 days!!

*  Plant height: 12 inches

*  Grows best: Sun/Partial Shade