Rusty
Chillin' In The Garden
I'm hoping someone can give me some insights on what is going wrong with my flowers.
As you may remember, I bought about half a dozen different varieties of flower seeds for a deck garden: different kinds of zinnias, marigolds, geraniums, petunias, and morning glories. I started them under lights and everything popped right up.
Then disaster hit in the form of damping off. I immediately repotted everything and moved them out to the porch for better air circulation. Nonetheless, I lost all of the zinnias and petunias. I lost most of the marigolds and morning glories. I lost none of the geraniums.
The survivors have now been growing for about 4 weeks. They get water, have plenty of filtered sunlight, have been fertilized with a liquid fertilizer (Miracle Grow) according to directions. They are potted in a good commercial mix and not in plain garden soil.
My problem is that, in the case of the marigolds, they are supposed to be blooming in 2 more weeks but they only have 2 small leaves apiece at this point. The geraniums are supposed to take longer, of course, but they, too, have only 2 leaves--and those leaves are smaller than my pinky nail!
Is there anything I can do to help overcome this failure to thrive? Anything I should have done to avoid it in the first place? The only thing I have not been able to control is the nighttime temps because they are out on the porch and not in the house anymore. The temps drop into the 40s, although the daytime temps have been high 70s and low 80s. Is this a factor?
Rusty
(who is scratching his head over this!)
As you may remember, I bought about half a dozen different varieties of flower seeds for a deck garden: different kinds of zinnias, marigolds, geraniums, petunias, and morning glories. I started them under lights and everything popped right up.
Then disaster hit in the form of damping off. I immediately repotted everything and moved them out to the porch for better air circulation. Nonetheless, I lost all of the zinnias and petunias. I lost most of the marigolds and morning glories. I lost none of the geraniums.
The survivors have now been growing for about 4 weeks. They get water, have plenty of filtered sunlight, have been fertilized with a liquid fertilizer (Miracle Grow) according to directions. They are potted in a good commercial mix and not in plain garden soil.
My problem is that, in the case of the marigolds, they are supposed to be blooming in 2 more weeks but they only have 2 small leaves apiece at this point. The geraniums are supposed to take longer, of course, but they, too, have only 2 leaves--and those leaves are smaller than my pinky nail!
Is there anything I can do to help overcome this failure to thrive? Anything I should have done to avoid it in the first place? The only thing I have not been able to control is the nighttime temps because they are out on the porch and not in the house anymore. The temps drop into the 40s, although the daytime temps have been high 70s and low 80s. Is this a factor?
Rusty
(who is scratching his head over this!)
