gejala pokok | symptomatic trees

I haven’t updated about my seedlings for awhile, cause I reckoned they just need to be left alone to grow. But some of them have started to act a little strangely.

They’re all planted at the same time, are generally left to grow in the same place, with the same amount of watering, sun and air. So why is it that some of them are growing like crazy, while others just kinda hang about, looking depressed, stunted or dying?

Here’s the very first plant I grew from seed (minus the statice that didn’t survive transplanting), the celosia:

Look at their difference!! They were both transplanted at the same time, from the same initial pot, and have been left side by side at the windowsill. Haven’t added any fertiliser or sweet words to either of them.

I don’t know why one looks like it’s turning into a proper plant, and the other one is just stuck at first true leaves stage. Either way, it makes me smile lots when I see the happily growing one. Hopefully it’ll serve as some kind of encouragement to the other pot. I have one more flower box worth of celosia, transplanted from a different batch earlier on. It looks even more stunted than this one

Same story with the petunia. Came back after the weekend at Bali, and one of the three tiny pots seem to have grown lots. It looked quite a lot like the one on the left initially, but better in colour (not so bleached). Now it’s looking pretty bushy

My marjorams are the worst! Out of hundreds of teeny tiny seedlings, it looks like only one will survive. I’m going to give up on the one that looks like it’s about to cough itself into a dry death soon. Sigh… But at least the one that is surviving looks pretty damn strong!

Gosh, so embarassing… I am a bad gardener!
Next is my baby nepenthes, which is thankfully doing better.

It was in the studio under fluorescent light and a humidifier for a few weeks, and was generally doing well. Spotted it coming up with new leaves, and decided to take it outside. And yes indeed, a new true leaf has emerged into a pitcher! And I can see two more coming up. Yay!

Soooooo cute it is! Smaller than my thumb

The original bigger nepenthes on the other hand, still stubbornly refuses to pitcher. It keep shaving small tendrils that bulb out, but something is missing. Not sure what. Maybe it’s too much direct sunlight. Found some mushrooms sharing its soil too last week. Took them all out. Maybe the mushroom was just being greedy, sucking up all the nutrients. Hmm…

See. One little tendril struggling hard to be a pitcher. It’s pretty much at the same spot, but the smaller nep is underneath it, which means it doesn’t get direct sunlight for as long. Should try and move it to somewhere else…

And finally, the sunflower seedling that tukang kebun brought over - from the same batch that I killed but she managed to keep them going, even if they germinated belatedly - is very very super ultra happy. And it’s blooming! I could just see the bud today. So excited!! Can’t wait for it to slowly open up.

First plant to flower from seed

i’ve been reluctant to transplant the celosia since i read in various places that they don’t handle transplanting very well. but since it was my second attempt at growing from seeds, i messed up quite a fair bit.

instead of mixing the peat moss with the soil, i put about 2 inches of peat moss on top of the soil. which means that the seedlings are probably not getting enough nutrients after germination. it took forever to grow true leaves — more than 3 weeks after germination. germination also took quite long (well, longer than the statice, which took only one day — celosia took about 3 days or so).

i bought some transplant starter-fertilizer thing, and misted some on after the leaves started to look a little yellow. BIG MISTAKE. made is worse, and after some advice from naturemitch in garden web forum, i left it alone and thinned one pot. it was alright for a bit, but now it’s getting overcrowded again.

since naturemitch said he’s transplanted celosias without having them die suddenly, i thought, why the hell not, just give it a go. by this point, i’ve transplanted the sage, phlox and balsam okay (even though not all of them are surviving, but a majority are fine), so feeling a little less clunky.

mixed the usual soil with a little bit of peat moss and a little bit of vermiculite, put them in a flower box because i haven’t got the small cell things, and i am hoping that they’d just be happy in the flower box until they all grow up and make weird blooms. watered from top — flower box doesn’t allow for bottom watering — as gently as i could with a ‘rose’ spout watering can. plonked them under florescent light, near a fan for 2 days.

they looked okay as of last night (day 2):

a couple didn’t survive… and i think i saw a spider hanging out near it. hope it’s the good kind, and not the kind that’ll just eat them all up.

geez, with the slowly dying sunflowers and dead statice, i’m starting to think i’m not cut out for this. maybe i should give myself some timelines to quit, so i won’t be responsible for bringing more things into life just to die. *gleep*

but on a brighter note, finally saw some full-grown cockscomb of the ‘coral floral’ variety at a nursery on tuesday. it looks pretty damn strange! can’t wait for my little babies to grow and start blooming

pulled these off the internet. it’s fluffier than the one i saw, but still wicked. like a cross between brains and corals and something entirely wonderful

suffering from crisis of confidence. after transplanting the statice, they started dying. there was one left that i still had some hope (see below), but i think i have to accept that it’s really a lost case. it’s pretty much all dead by now. i don’t know what i did wrong, whether the hole i dug was too deep, or if they were weakened by the storm attack, or if i didn’t pack the soil around the seedlings enough after transplanting them, or i simply fucked up when i tried to separate the soil from the seedling when digging them out.

whatever it is, it’s dead.

and then the celosia. they germinated around 6th april, and it’s now 16 days later, and there’s no sign of true leaves showing.

i bought some schultz starter plus solution and misted some diluted amount on them a few days ago. i think i made it worse. some of the lower leaves started to yellow, and the stems are wriggly.

this is how it looks today. the pencil is to give a sense of its size (also works as a good dibber!)

this is how it looks like with the flash switched on.

tried thinning one of the pots tonight, by snipping the really tiny and almost dying ones as close to the earth as possible, and then picking them off with tweezers. i really hope it works. i don’t think i can handle another failed batch of seedlings.

i had to a cluster of the statice seedlings yesterday. it’s a very sad day indeed.

basically saw a bit in the soil near cluster number 1 that was wet and was slightly depressed (physically, not emotionally), and it was kinda glistening and moving. changed the direction and took a much closer look at it, also to check for ‘true’ leaves so that i can start transplanting.

turned out the movement wasn’t water, but a whole bunch of very very fine white coloured wriggly thingy that i can only call worms in my limited vocabulary. still unwilling to kill the seedlings, left them there and did some research. no luck, but there’s this thing called ‘wire worm‘ that kills crops. so to prevent the worms from going to the other clusters, with heart weighing like a big pot of tanah, i took out a chunk of the soil with the seedlings and dumped them.

now it’s just wait and see if the other clusters are okay. if ‘true’ leaves will emerge (basically, the cotyledons are usually a twin leaf that stores nutrients in the seeds, and when they germinate, real/regular/true leaves start to grow and changes function from storage to photosynthesis). and if they can survive the transplanting, which is apparently like what surgery is to humans.

crap.

some foto2 of development:

cluster number 2 of the statice, which is the healthiest so far, and has some ‘true’ leaves coming out in between the cotyledons. this was taken on 6 april, and they haven’t changed much since.

the cluster that i had to kill

but the celasio looks good! they’re like a small little forest but i’m going to have to start ‘thinning’ them soon, which means more murder!

this whole planting thing is bad for my karma i’m sure

okay…. my seeds are not drowned or dried out. they are ALIVE! yippee! :)

in the space of 12 hours, they have broken through the soil surface in a mini earthquake, and now look like baby worms wriggling into life. i’m so damn excited. but also very sleepy. because it’s almost 2am now. inilah dikatakan dedikasi…

pot number 1

pot number 2

watch this space for further miniscule miracles. dum dum dum….

a little nervous. i planted two pots of celosia (cockscomb - ‘coral floral’ variety) 2 nights ago. yesterday was scorching hot, and i left them out in the balcony. sprayed it every couple of hours cause the soil looked like it’s drying up, but i’m afraid i might have killed the seeds.

took them in last night, and wrapped cling film on top of the tops. was about to take them out to the balcony again, but then it looks like very very very tiny shoots are coming out.

now i am stressed out. i don’t know if i should leave them where they are, or take them to the balcony. should i continue to cling wrap, or take them out? what if they can’t breathe?? what if there’s not enough light indoors??

all the instructions i’ve found so far are for places with 4 seasons, where they recommend planting it indoors 4-6 weeks before the last ‘frost date’. i have no idea what that means. said to plant in peat pots, i planted them straight in smallish pots. said to cling wrap (opening once a day to let them breathe), i only started this one day later, and how long should i open it for? said they light warm soil (no problem there, we’re in a hot country) and lightly moist soil (so do i spritz or water from below like the rest? what’s the difference between lightly moist and kinda dry?)

i’m very very stressed! it’s supposed to be easy to grow, but how come it’s so hard?

btw, it’s confirmed. i drowned the cosmos seeds. they should have sprouted a little by now (5 days later) but the soil shows nothing except ants and some roots. drat.

• e-how: how to grow cockscomb
• the gardeners network: how to grow celosia
• national garden bureau: celosia fact sheet (with history, name origins and instructions on growing)