Many of the marigolds have little flower buds, now. Most of the buds, when inspected closely, look as if they will eventually become light yellow flowers, but a few appear to be a bit darker in the center. I’m impressed by how quickly they’ve gotten to this point, but wondering if perhaps I should have pinched the starter buds to encourage them to get a bit bushier before flowering? I’ll observe and see how they do. Based on their rapid development and how well they appear to be doing inside, I’m wondering if it would be possible to grow marigolds indoors any time of year…

The sunflower sprouts in my Flowercan are looking good. Working on their second set of adult leaves.

I pinched off the growing end of my Susan vines after each of them got to their third set of adult leaves; accordingly, they started to put more energy into forming new buds at the joints where each of their original leaves sprouted, and now some of those buds are working on their second set of leaves already. I hope they continue doing this well once they’re outside. No sign of flowers on them yet, but I’m not expecting that until summertime, really. There is also a tiny spider who’s declared the vines as its home for the last few weeks, which is kind of sweet. I’m happy to let him hang around and poach any little pests that might be attracted to my plants.

A minor catastrophe occurred with the lanterns last week.  I came home one day to find that one of them had wilted in a big way and crumpled over sideways. My mistake — I’d been trying not to overwater them, but I went a little bit too far. Gave them a big drink and amazingly, an hour later the poor little guy was plump and standing up straight again. I’m impressed by their toughness, but will try to make sure they don’t dry out so badly again. Planning to finally pot them up today.

And, lastly, I planted my morning glory seeds in a container outdoors last Sunday. I haven’t been out to check on them yet today but as of yesterday afternoon, it looked like there was one little green shoot starting to come up out of the soil. It might have been a weed, I suppose…