The Great Seed Experiment of 2013 continues. I had a few setbacks with the flowers in late March. While the Black-eyed Susan and Purple Coneflowers were being transplanted into bigger pots, the Butterfly Weed and Common Milkweed were dying and the Bee Balm was growing crookedly. Hoping natural light would save some of those struggling plants, I started leaving them outside during the day in early April.
I continued to lose Common Milkweed but the sunlight slowed down the death of the Butterfly Weed. The damage seemed to be done with the Bee Balm. The plants continued to grow crookedly despite the natural sunlight and support. I lost one pot. But I refused to give up on the pretty purple flowers.
While the older plants may have died off or continued to grow crookedly, new growth sprouted in all of the pots. In fact, I think I need to transplant these babies.
I came to the conclusion that the Common and Butterfly (both of the genus
Asclepias) Weeds did poorly with grow lights and needed sunshine. I lost all but 2 of my Common Milkweed and a half dozen Butterfly Weed remain. But they have markedly improved since being transferred outside.
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| Butterfly Weed |
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| Common Milkweed |
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My Black-eyed Susan are beginning to bloom!
The Coneflowers growing, but at a slower rate and have not flowered. I don't know if this is normal or not.
Time to get transplanting.
Hey, I just tried to leave you a comment, and I got a blank page, then a shouty bold-print message that said BAD REQUEST! Like I'd asked to piddle on the carpet or something! So here it is, in case you never got it:
ReplyDeleteYou are so knowledgeable. They're just weeds to me. I've never been good at discerning wild things. You would have wept if you had been in my wildlife management class in college. Everyone else recognized the bird calls on the phonograph record. Not me. In my defense, the other students were majoring in recreation, and liked nothing better than to tramp around the wilderness with binoculars and notebooks. Not that there's anything wrong with that...
Hey, you might want to check out this bird book made by kids. Here's a post that talks about it.
http://lynnobermoeller.blogspot.com/2013/06/encouraging-creativeness.html
Hillbilly Mom
DeleteI'm lucky that I work with several botanists. I have learned so much from them. I should have read more about propagation on the plants I picked, but I talked with my co-workers and just winged it.