Geranium is a Fast Growing Plant.

It has been a little over 2 weeks since the last entry.  Geraniums are growing pretty fast!

38 Days after seeding, I found a tiny third true leaf coming out.  These leaves are quite small - even smaller than a penny.

4 days after the first picuture, and 42 days after seeding.  The newest true leaf is growing fast, and I see a new bud of leaf coming out of the tip of the stem.  They are tiny, but the purple markings are visible.

Blanket Flower Update!

It's been a month and half since the last entry on Blanket Flower.  That was when a few true leaves started to grow.  Let me show you how it looks now.

A few more leaves grew, and the plant is about 3-inches tall.  Not much progress in 45 days, but the plant is doing fine.  I am still hopeful that I will get to see the cheerful flowers by summer.

No, I Did Not Forget - Forget Me Not Update

I've been procrastinating and haven't made an entry for a while.  Although I didn't post anything here, it doesn't mean that my plants were also holding on.  One of the first seeds I sowed was FORGET ME NOT.  I lost a couple seedlings to snails and slugs - they vanished overnight - and gave some to my friends.  Now I have 5, and all of them are doing well although...FORGET ME NOT grows very slow!

 

A few days after the last entry on 10/25, I transplanted one of the seedlings to a small pot, and 10 days later, the number of leaves increased.  It seems the plant liked the upgrade :)

About 3 weeks later, I needed to transplant the plant to a larger pot again.  When I pulled it out of the smaller pot, the roots were tangled and obviously wanted a bigger place.  So there!  I hope I can grow it in this pot until it bears flowers.

Almost Good-Bye to Paperwhite...

This was the first flower that I planted that opened.  From planting to this 'almost-done' blooming stage, it took only less than 2 months.  According to what I have read, I am supposed to fertilize even after the flowers are done; it is to let the bulb absorb nutrients for the next year.  I hope it will come back!

Thank you for letting me enjoy the growth and the sweet fragrance!  Till next year!!

 

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

Flowers, Finally!

30 days after planting the bulbs, my paperwhite has finally bloomed!  This really was a beginner friendly plant to grow.  It took only one month to see the flowers since I planted the bulbs. 

Thse flowers made me very happy!  I hope they last long.

Truely a True Leaf

4 out of the 6 seeds I planted survived transplant to bigger pots.  21 days later, one of the seedlings showed one true leaf!

The true leaf is tiny, but it has the distinctive marking already.  I touched the leaf and sniffed the smell...yeah, this is the smell I used to hate.  Now that I am growing it, I don't mind the smell anymore :)