I expected my Nasturtium 'Spitfire' to be climbing much higher up the homemade teepee trellis I'd constructed for them by now. The plants seem to be fairly healthy, with no real insect problems or disease that I can tell, but they are no taller than any other nasturtiums I've grown in the past. At least not yet anyway. We've had warm temperatures with plenty of rain - but not too much rain - and the rest of the garden has become a jungle.
Nasturtiums don't benefit from fertilizer as far as blooming is concerned, so while feeding them might make the plants larger (i.e. climb higher), it would diminish the blooms, so no fertilizer or compost has been applied.
Other than not really climbing yet, I've made a couple of other observations:
- Typical of previous nasturtiums I've grown, many of the lower leaves have turned yellow and gotten brown and crispy. It's not to excess, but every year I've grown these plants, I get this, so at least for me, it's not out of the ordinary.
- I'm seeing seed formation already, which surprises me. First blooms were three weeks ago, so I guess it's not too early for that, but it seems like it. But then the cicadas started singing two weeks ago, and that's early for them, too.
Nasturtium seed pods
- I've not noticed aphids hanging out on these, which is saying something, because I don't think I've ever grown nasturtiums that didn't have aphids at some point. It was usually black aphids. I have noticed a little bit of leaf miner activity though.
- One of the plants has lighter colored blooms than the rest. I prefer the darker color, which I think is the color they're supposed to be, but the lighter color is still pretty. The veining shows up a little better in the lighter ones.
One plant has lighter colored blooms than the others.
Both colors of blooms have that fringy detail that I love to photograph up close and personal:
Lighter color
Darker color
I will save some seeds from these, just to see what grows from them, colorwise. I'll keep the seeds from the lighter colored blooms separate from the darker ones and see what their offspring look like. I had many volunteers this year from pink Wave petunias that were in my front porch flower boxes last year and what I got from those is very interesting. (Future blog post about that!)
Planted (direct sow): April 18
First bloom: June 12
Days to bloom: 55
Thanks to ReneesGarden.com for the seeds."
"Bejeweled"
9 comments:
I've had two different colors too! One is a deep tomato-soup orange, and the other is tangerine color.
I'm getting different bloom colors here as well. I'm not seeing seed pods on mine yet, but now I'm definitely going to keep a lookout for them. I just love the fringe inside the blooms. They're such pretty flowers {though I have yet to meet a nasturtium I didn't like ;-) }
I have color variations, too, but I honestly like the lighter orange better because I love the stripes. I also like the fringes which I didn't notice until I downloaded my macro shot. The leaf yellowing also happened routinely with 'Empress of India.' I think it's a nasturtium thang. :)
I never have luck with nasturtiums. I have given up trying to grow them. I always envy people that have them wandering all over their flower beds. Such a pretty plant.
The darker color is rich. It is difficult to grow nasturtiums here with so much heat and humidity.
mine didn't do too good this year
My flowers from seeds haven't done very well this year as they got drowned the night after I planted them and it's been very dry and hot ever since!
Your nasturtiums are gorgious though - I love the colours :)
Your nasturtiums are looking beautiful Kylee!
That's weird that you got a yellow one in there. They look like they're doing great though.
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