Smith & Hawken: Amaryllis Bulb Kit

I hope everyone had a very merry Christmas! For Christmas, I received an Amaryllis Bulb kit from Smith and Hawken. It contained a Minerva Amaryllis bulb.

The bulb was pretty good sized and there were leaves trying to start.

What I found baffling was that after I poured three cups of water into the pot and came back after an hour, I saw that the 'growing medium' didn't even come up halfway. I used a butter knife to stir it and the growing medium was mostly soggy and only came up halfway in the pot.

So I re-read the directions in case I missed anything. I didn't know if I had to add something beforehand.

Even the illustration shows that the pod was supposed to fill up the pot.

Lucky for me, I remembered some pellets from a mini-greenhouse that never got used and tossed in about eleven of them to fill the rest of the pot.

Voila! A potted Amaryllis.

Besides the lack of growing medium, what makes me nervous is how the pot has no holes. It has three little "rubber-stops" on the bottom to prevent the bottom of the pot from scratching the surface.

I guess as long as I just keep it moist and not wet, it should be fine until I get it into the ground come next spring.

Still hoping to get my hands on a white amaryllis but it seems they're not easily found for some reason.

Identify Plant?

We have a winner! I knew we would. From a capsule in the Desert Gatherings' "Hummingbird Garden" tube (Post 1, Post 2), I introduce you to a really nice plant that has overpowered all the others!



A close-up.



Can anyone identify what plant this is? It looks familiar but... The other plants are still growing but they're hidden and sort of trying to grow out a bit but I'm not sure how long they'll last.




And of course, the sunflower in the sandbox has flowered. ;)

Updates on a few things

The first picture is really for my personal record - With the Grown-From-Seed Amaryllis planted in the bed, I decided to fish out my batch of Amaryllis seeds that I saved from last year and re-used the flowerbox. I think this batch of seeds have some seeds from the pink/white Amaryllis too. Who knows. It's all mixed together.



The "Desert Gatherings" update (Original Post - 20th of April). The Century Plant and the Joshua Tree seeds did not grow thus far.

For the Hummingbird stuff, Seeds from one capsule EXPLODED as you can see from the picture below. The pot next to it shows two of the big brown seeds have germinated. All the other pots have done nothing.



My Easter Cactus is blooming like crazy! A picture of a red bloom open. :)

Planted Seeds - Joy!

Turns out that there was another tube from Desert Gatherings. A hummingbird garden. I was thinking of opening the capsules and spreading the seeds out but a few people I talked to all said the same thing. "Why?" I can't imagine a bunch of seeds in capsules are gonna do fine but... Instructions say nothing about doing anything with capsules so I just stuck them both each in a pot.



The large brown seeds - I put two to each pot so that's 5 pots altogether for the hummingbird assortment.




I planted 2 Century Plant seeds and 2 Joshua Tree seeds. Didn't want to use them all up right away. I was confused by the instructions though. It says to keep the pots in an inch of water. I found two lids and just poured water in 'em and all. You can see the tiny terracotta pot there, obscured by the spider plant stolons. hehe.

The one thing I did find neat in the instructions was this: If your plant reaches at least four inches in height, please return it to the desert from which it came.

My sister bought the seeds in Las Vegas soooo... I don't see myself going there any time soon! hehe.

Seeds of Century Plant and Joshua Tree

Look at this! My sister got 'em for me. She knows I'm a sucker for kits and all.

One's a Century Plant Kit (Giant Agave). It comes with a tiny terracotta pot, a little bag of dirt, and seeds for the ultimate experience!

The other is a tube for Joshua Tree seeds. It contains a small shovel (decoration?) inside.

They're both from "Desert Gatherings". Anyone have experience with them?

Hanging Basket Grow Kit - 2

Finally opened the kit and assembled it. The seeds planted are "Tiny Tim Tomato Seeds". Looks like a strange set-up for the tomatoes but an interesting idea nonetheless. My fear is that a bird will make a nest on the side!

Hanging Basket Grow Kit

I had a very positive experience with Buzzy's Mini Tomato Grow Kit that I decided to buy this!

Buzzy's Hanging Basket Grow Kit. Yup, more tomatoes! It's still in the box and I've yet to take everything out and examine it closely.

Tiny Tim Tomatoes - Tomato Kit

I was asked to make an update on the Tomato Kit that I posted about awhile back. I'm kind of embarassed because I haven't really put much effort into watching them.





Most or all have fallen over due to the weight of the tomatoes. I should've staked them up once I saw it happening but I didn't do it. At least the tomatoes are still growing. I'm surprised about that.

Tomato Kit continued...

According to the instructions, When the plants are approximately 5", you split them up. I could've tossed out the smaller ones but I decided to give every plant a chance.



Sorry for the badly "bleached" picture below. I split them up, then ran out of pots and stuffed four of them together in the last pot.




So who knows if they'll survive or not. I didn't think moving small plants was a good idea but I'm just following instructions! I do still have the packet in case I decide to try again if these meet a bad end.

A look around the yard today...

Hibiscus

The hibiscus are starting to grow in real good. This group is always the first to come and always the first to grow before the other two can catch up.


Sawfly

And it appears the battle has begun. There's several sawflies swarming around this one. Oy. I have to start applying sevin spray as that's the only thing that has ever worked on the buggers.


Iris


Iris

You know, I still can't figure out how to pollinate them? Can anyone tell me what I'm supposed to do here? I imagine that toilet-brush looking thing is the anther that I'm supposed to pluck. Where do I apply this thing to pollinate the flower?


Mini Tomato Grow Kit

At first when the seeds came up, it didn't resemble anything like a tomato plant. Then the extra leaves grew in and now they look like tomato plants. According to the instructions, I'm to start giving them fertilizer when they're 2" and then separate when they're 5".


Wisteria

I plucked a few wisteria seedlings and figured it'd be neat to take a picture of one to show y'all.

Mini Tomato Grow Kit

Ahhh, I'm a sucker for plant kits.




The seed packet says "Tiny Tim". I looked it up on the 'net and it doesn't seem to be very popular.