I stuck this thing in succulent dirt, in that pot, from a right off the top of a grocery store pineapple 5 years ago and figured that it would never have a shot to flower because it’s in a north east facing window, but I always thought it was a cool thing to look at that I kept alive. I’m shocked that it’s actually flowering. I had to share.
Because you shared your story with me, I feel like sharing with you one of mine.
We had some neighbors move in across the street. This is way back when I used to live with my parents. The new neighbors had two little girls and they were worried about this huge cactus in the middle of the yard. They didn’t want the girls to run into it while playing. They tried to dig it up, and failed miserably. It was just too big and too heavy. The next bright idea was to wrap a chain around the cactus and anchor it to the back of a truck and rip it out of the ground. The plant was absolutely gnarled. Clearly, the rot would set in and it should surely die. It seemed like they only got 3/4 of it out of the ground and the rest of it died in that spot.
We asked if we could have the remains. They said sure, why not. We dragged the massive cactus flesh pile across the street and made a vague attempt to plant it in the ground beside our house. Almost 20 years later it’s flourishing, and we have dozens of beautiful blooms every year. I watched over many years as the plant carefully grew new offshoots and discarded the mangled parts of itself from the chains. The specimen is truly stunning now. Thing is, that cactus probably lived there for years before they built the house, and they sold the house five years later. That was 15 years ago when they sold it.
That plant faced such adversity and then with almost 2 decades of neglect it looks like it was tended by the gods. Perhaps it was.
That’s an incredible story. All of my plants are rescues and because of the shit light situation that I have in my apartment they are all leggy but I have given out so many pups from offshoots and broken off branches that all thrive. It’s like a little orphan village in my windows now. bonus family photo
I live in the Netherlands and GMO's are banned here so I hope some get to Switzerland(not EU) where I could buy them and then import them like glofish.
Man... Fuck the US patent system.
"Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use."
¯\_(ツ)_/¯ it is what it is, however petunias are very easy to propagate and you can do whatever you want with your plant as long as you aren't selling it.
I already have a second one growing from a cutting I took.
Ok, I'll take back some of my hate. I thought they had put some sort of monsanto-like 'if you try to reproduce it on your own they'll die' gene.
If it's not 'pay $40 if you want another plant' then that's more reasonable.
To be fair, they probably spent years of time, effort and money to design this product. Why should someone else be able to propagate it and profit from their blood sweat and tears?
'Personal use' covers propagation and breeding by an individual, for non-commercial purposes. Nobody's saying -you- can't try to propigate or breed them, but you could be libel if you try to make money off the endeavor.
In this case I would say the patent system is working as intended, in that it gives some protection to LightBio's investment into creating the firefly. While I would LOVE to see an expanded variety available from other -commercial- growers (with MUCH larger operations and funding), I don't want it to be at the expense of LightBio's effort, or the commercial success they've earned for creating it in the first place.
I was in the same boat with a very faint or no glow at first. With fertilization and some bright lighting you'll start getting new growth that'll glow!
Mine arrived all mangled, with most of the roots ripped off during shipping. It's recovering now, looking forward to hopefully getting to see the bioluminescence in a few weeks
Nice! I got mine recently too but haven't checked it for luminescence since I've been busy - I still need to repot it and hang it in a better spot that gets better sunlight so I'm not expecting it to be bright just yet.
Mine had almost no glow when I first got it, and I mangled the roots during repotting so it lost all of its leaves. This is its first new growth and it's nice and bright, I hope yours does well too!
I used the night sight feature on my phone's camera for this photo, however I would say the brightness level is pretty accurate to what you'd see with the the naked eye once adjusted to low light.
Perhaps a tad dimmer in real life, but it provides enough light to faintly illuminate really close objects such as my hand. It's super cool
Super neat. At some point I need to intern at a plant breeding lab just to inject that into all of my houseplants that can tolerate it. Right now I've got a mix of pothos, hoyas, philodendrons, and jasmines trailing around my house and it'd be so much better if they were one long nightlight.
I really hope this company (and others) are successful, it would be so awesome to have a variety of plant species available in GMO bioluminescent forms lol.
Flower stem and leaves seemed fine and not dehydrated (I did the fold method on leaves to check).
We did not water after transplanting.
I did end up giving her a little bit of water before bed last night though. And woke up this morning to her all perked up! Not sure if the water helped, or she became acclimated, but my daughter will be waking up happy!
Joking aside, I don't know about Dahlias, but I know there are many plants that you have to take extra precautions when transplanting, such as waiting till after bloom or during a certain season. Could be over/under watering. Like I said, I don't know Dahlias, but those are some starting points till someone with the knowledge shows up.
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