Planting Bonsai Trees with a Kit Experience

Planting Bonsai trees with a kit was an interesting experience for us. It started when Miss Owl gave me such a kit for my birthday. This post is about planting, waiting for seeds to grow and what happened. First, the kit included seeds, an information booklet, a clipper for roots and leaves, soil pellets that expand in water, and signs for each tree. We examined everything at first.

We matched the tree seeds that were in individual vials to their names. Looking at the small seeds it was difficult to see they were going to become trees, even if we were able to keep them small.

Next, we planted and marked the beginning date of March 25, 2019, understanding they would take weeks to germinate. The kinds of seeds were Pinus Aristrata, Jacaranda Mimosifolia, Picea Aires North America, and Delonix Regia.

It took a few weeks and then three kinds of seeds sprouted (germinated). This image is from June 11th, so it was about six weeks after the March 25th planting.

Then I took them outside for partial days to get fresh air and sunshine. As an alternative, the kind florist at Whole Foods in Maple Grove, MN, who has helped me before with Amaryllis bulbs and old-fashioned carnations for a color experiment, suggested a $10 sunlight bulb, lamp, and timer. I should have done that starting in March as you will soon see.

So the only tree seeds that lived were the Delonix Regia, although some of the others are still limping along. We will wait and see what happens, but this one seems to be the strongest and healthiest of the seeds.

However, Whole Foods sells Bonsai trees about this time of year, and so Sarah the wonderful florist there rescued me again. I can’t imagine how old this plant is and we have never seen such a Bonsai plant. Plants are very interesting. It arrived home in a special floral bag.

Then, we placed it in a new pot and are caring for it from now on.