Flower Rocket – Cynthia M Voss

Flower Rocket Roundup: Last Year’s Failure

Last year I received two pots planted with something called a Flower Rocket for Mother’s Day. I had high hopes, initially chronicling the growth of the two pots that would eventually lead to “thousands of blooms,” according to the product’s packaging.

My last entry comes from day 48, when nothing much was happening after 7 weeks. Throughout the summer I got maybe 6-8 flowers. I took some pictures, but apparently wasn’t excited enough to rush inside and blog about it.

Here are a couple of those pictures. It seems I couldn’t even be bothered to snap a decent shot of the few flowers that did come.

flower rocket pink flower — Some kind of pink flower too. There was a white one as well but the photo is too blurry to identify it.

I suppose these do the job of proving that some flowers happened.

Here’s the maple tree that grew last summer in the Flower Rocket pot. I’m so happy that it survived the winter. I used photos of its tiny, new leaves in my post for Photo101: Scale last month.

Best thing to come out of the Flower Rocket Experiment was the maple tree that happened to grow in the pot.

I had a bad experience with the Flower Rocket, but to be fair to its manufacturers, it’s possible that my balcony doesn’t get enough sunlight. There’s nothing anyone can do about that. I hope that other people have successful rockets flying to the land of “thousands of blooms,” but it didn’t work for me.

Photo101: Scale

Tiny, brand-new maple leaves

I wanted to show these tiny leaves for the assignment called Scale. These are from one of three maple trees that sprouted from seed last year in my planter. I brought the pot inside for the winter and these leaves appeared just the other day. I’m so happy to see that at least this one survived. It’s nice to have a touch of spring’s renewal inside my home.

I taped a quarter to the wall for scale.

These saplings made their home in one of my Flower Rocket pots, which were a Mother’s Day gift last year. The Flower Rocket was a preloaded seed pod that promised thousands of blooms, but it didn’t quite work out. I only got a handful of stray flowers throughout the summer, and that’s from two rockets. I posted updates last year but eventually got so fed up with them that I didn’t want to think about them anymore, focusing instead on the little trees that found their way up to my balcony.

Day 48, The Flower Rocket Experiment: Disappointment has Taken Root

It’s day 48 of this experiement. The Flower Rockets have been planted since Mother’s Day, and nothing much has happened.

Day 48, Flower Rocket pot. I'm excited about the maple trees. — Day 48, Flower Rocket growth (or lack thereof). I’m excited about the maple trees that blew into the pot.

As this was a gift, I’m not sure if the instructions were followed. I assume they were, since my parents are both good gardeners. (And they can read.) They helped my kids plant these things. Anyway, the box says, “Just plant … & water!” So those two steps are covered.

The box does warn that drying out will decrease growth. I may have slipped on that lately, but for the most part I have faithfully watered my Rockets since they were given to me. The box claimed I’d have “Continuous blooming all summer long!” I mean, when you see the “As Seen on TV” logo, you take things with a grain of salt, I guess.

Day 48 Flower Rocket pot. The mystery flowers are growing in the upper left.

Well at least I’ve got these maple trees growing, so that’s interesting. The mystery flower sprouts are doing well, too. That might be a marigold on the upper right.

It’s disappointing, but hey, not all experiments give you the results you want. I hope to get one flower out of these two pots by the time the cold weather comes in fall. If not I can always bring these inside and continue the disappointment 😛

Day 31, The Flower Rocket Experiment: Less Rocket and More Horse-Drawn Carriage

So, since my trip to the nursery, who has had time for the Flower Rocket lately? I have so many more interesting things happening in my little container garden, that the Rockets are definitely not getting the same attention as they were several weeks ago.

Day 31 Flower Rocket. Oh, I’m sorry, are you still here?

The most interesting thing here is the maple tree that’s growing in the upper right. The seed was one of those little “helicopters” that choppered its way into the pot. I noticed it on the day that the helicopter was still hanging on to the leaves. I should have taken a picture, but missed the opportunity—it had fallen off by the time I went back out there. You snooze, you lose!

Flower Rocket day 31 — New growth up top

This pot has some interesting things happening….but, sadly, it’s not part of the Flower Rocket. Up top, these are spouts from seeds of this plant (below) that I also received as a gift for Mother’s Day.

pink and white five petal flower — Mystery flower. Some day I will research and find the name….

I don’t know the name of these flowers, but when they dry out they create tons of seeds, as I found out when I was picking off the dead blossoms. Seeds spilled everywhere. So, I scooped them up and threw them in the Flower Rocket pot to liven things up.

I’ll admit that I do notice some more variation in the different plants and it’s, um, kind of coming along. But it’s definitely feeling like less of a ride on a Flower Rocket and more of a ride on a Flower Horse-Drawn Carriage. Or maybe a Barge. Or Wheelbarrow. Being pushed through sand.

Day 23, The Flower Rocket Experiment: Still Boring. Plus, a pea plant.

So, we’re on Day 23. Again, not much has changed. Maybe this just takes a while to get going.

Maybe my impatience is a hint to why I don’t start flowers from seed 🙂 Well, that and because I don’t have any space in which to do so.

Day 23, Flower Rocket. It's like what they say about a watched pot... — Day 23, Flower Rocket. It’s like what they say about a watched pot…

Vegetables are different though. Those seeds I like to plant because they grow quickly. Well, some of them anyway. I don’t plant the slow ones. Or the ones that grow deep. Or the creeping ones. Actually I don’t have a lot of space to work with, just a few containers on my balcony, so before it starts to sound like I’m getting a bit whiny, just remember that I don’t have the real estate to grow all the wonderful things I’d like.

I love the way this pea plant grew. It’s bigger now and looking for something to climb.

Leaves on a pea plant reaching for the sky

Day 17 and 19, The Flower Rocket Experiment: Not Dead, Hooray!

I was happy to see when I got back home from vacation that my little Flower-Rockets-to-be were not dead. Hooray! Here they are on Day 17 looking, well, kind of the same as last time.

Hey, at least they didn’t dry up while I was away. I was worried. They seem like they haven’t grown much, but I guess breaking even isn’t too bad.

Day 19, Flower Rocket sprouts

And today makes Day 19. It’s nice to see the differences in the sprouts. At least that’s one way to track progress.

Grow, babies, grow!

Day 13, The Flower Rocket Experiment: Hang in there, sprouts!

Day 13 of my little experiment. Not too much has changed. The tiny plants got a bit bigger.

Day 13, Flower Rocket

I’m worried about their future. Turns out we have to go away for the weekend. These things are supposed to be watered every day. The good news is that it’s supposed to rain, so I pushed the pots to the edge of the balcony where the rain usually blows in.

Day 13, Flower Rocket

I watered them thoroughly this evening and plan to top them off in the morning before we go. Good luck little sprouts! I’ll be back before you know it.

Day 11, The Flower Rocket Experiment

So we’re on Day 11 of the Flower Rocket Experiment. Things are going along nicely. We had a few rainy, cloudy days so I think more sunshine could have helped these guys along a bit more.

Day 11, sprouts (Oops, blurry!)

Now it seems like the pot that had the green spiral stuff sticking out of the soil might actually be doing better than the one that was buried farther down. I guess we’ll see how they go.

I almost feel bad comparing them. Like they say you’re not supposed to compare your children (even in your head, to yourself….but how can you not?). Maybe part of it is because I know which one of my children planted which pot 🙂

The Flower Rocket Experiment

On Mother’s Day, my daughter proudly marched me outside to see my gift. What looked like a piece of blue bubble wrap sticking out of a flower pot is actually something called the Flower Rocket (as seen on TV!, apparently). The grandparents helped my kids plant them, and luckily they saved the box so there was something to explain what I was looking at. This allowed me to show genuine enthusiasm for my gift, as opposed to the times when, well…anyone who’s ever gotten a scribbled paper as a present knows what I’m talking about.

Flower rocket day 5 — Flower Rocket Day 5

So here they are on Day 5. Looking good, seeing some tiny bits of green sprouting.

Flower Rocket, Day 5, closeup — Day 5, sprouts

Day 5, sprouts, flower rocket — Day 5, sprouts

Here they are on Day 7. You can start to see differences between the sprouts. So far, so good.

Day 7, sprouts, flower rocket — Day 7, sprouts

The box promises that I’m getting 15 flower varieties, with more than 2,000 seeds, thousands of flowers, and continuous blooming all summer long. I’m excited and looking forward to how these turn out!

Has anyone had experience with these rocket things? I see that there’s a tomato one as well.

UPDATE: April 2015, To see how it all turned out, see the list of posts that I wrote about my two Flower Rockets