BILL CLINTON CHIA PET

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This is my Chia pet. I bought the head at goodwill last year, and planted it all last summer. It gives you something to do and something to look at. I like it.

I forgot to take pictures of the starting process.  Basically, you mix a couple teaspoons of chia seeds with a quarter cup of water, let it goop up for a half hour and then start applying it.  It's "fun and easy" like the advertisement says. You're then supposed to leave it alone for two days, no water, to make sure the seeds adhere to the clay. Next you fill the head up with water and the head starts sweating.  I throw a plastic bag over the top to "greenhouse" it.  It takes a day for the sprouts to start.

Here's the head with the bag off:

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A day later. The more you leave the greenhouse on, the longer the roots get, so you gotta watch it, depending on how neat you want to keep it.

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Moving around the house, looking for the sun. You have to turn it a lot so the sprouts don't reach to much in one direction.

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The next day. The sprouts were really reaching, not getting a a lotta lotta sun, so I'm not really getting a real tight "bush". Kinda "leggy", I think the term is.

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Aw, yeah...

 Soakin' up the rays...

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I stick it back under the bag sometimes, because the sprouts near the hole get a little dryer and need the humidity. Trying to get an even plumage. 

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Another day or two... Basically full grown. The leaves will get bigger in the summer, and give the pet better coverage. This is fine, though. I like it.

Bonus pic:



My Kalenchoe's blooms are almost all open! Pretty cool!


thanks for looking.
-Greg

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Hello, and welcome to my first blog post. Here, I will introduce you to some (most) of my plants. I've been caring for these plants between 6 months and a year. With the exception of one plant, they all came from plants my sister gave me. Mostly as cuttings from her plants.

To the left, you'll see my African Violets and some Golden Pothos plants. The violets started as a single leaf (the big one), and the Pothos were snipped from a larger plant. See below for a zoom in on the violets:

These little guys didn't start growing until 6 months after I got the big leaf to root. My sister gave me 3 leaves, and this was the only one to make it. I had this one leaf sitting in a pot all winter, and the little dudes just started sprouting maybe three weeks ago. Pretty cool!

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Next up is my Crown of Thorns plant and my Kalenchoe.  The Thorny one, I bought last year and just re-potted it in a larger pot last month. Sometimes it pops out a couple of white flowers, but they never last long. With the new pot, and more room for it's roots, she's already started growing new leaves and I see three sets of news buds. So, I could have 6 flowers, which would be a record!
 The Kalenchoe, I got from my sister as a single stalk she had rooted. You can see there are two stalks sticking off a main stalk. The main stalk is what I started with. I've had it since last fall, and it started blooming for the first time just this week. The buds started about a month ago. 

Here are some more pictures of those guys:

 

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Here is some other cool plant, but I don't know what it's called. This started as just a single sprig of leaves. My sister gave that to me wrapped in a paper towel. I set it in some soil last year, and now it's spilling out. Pretty cool! 

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Lastly, here are some cacti my sister gave me. The two spider cacti (left), each started with only one or two section sticking out. Now, 6 months or whatever later, it's got all sorts of sprigs popping out. The other cacti (right) I'd say were about half the size when I got them. You can kind of tell by where they're pinched in the middle. These apparently will propogate themselves and they look pretty neat, a bunch of them crowded together, crawling out of the pot.

bonus:

succulents. are they still alive? do they want water now? I can't tell. 

Well, that's about it. Thanks for looking at my plants. It's a fun thing to get into and you always have nice, living things to look at.  I never had much luck with houseplants before, and now I'm doing pretty good. It just takes patience and attention.  Many thanks to my sister for all the cuttings and advice!