Fast Starting Plant Winners

A couple of plants that I started this year win the Fast Starting Award, achieving bloom under lights in a short time.   Agastache aurantiaca, a native perennial, was started 1/17/11 and has been blooming since 4/18/11, and Asperula orientalis, a Euro-Asian annual that self-sows, was started 2/7/11 and has been blooming since 4/15/11.  The remarkable thing is they are blooming under lights.  The Asperula is supposed to be sky blue but is a pale magenta or lavender under lights.  I will have to see how that changes if grown outdoors.

The Agastache aurantiaca smells heavenly, too.  I am in process of hardening off some plants and getting them set out but have been hampered this year by cold temperatures and lots of rainy days, still continuing.  I also started Agastache foeniculum last year and it has made it through the winter outdoors, and this year I started other Agastaches as well- cusickii, occidentalis- a Northwest native, cana, rupestris, and a few other native plants with seed from Alplains.  None of them are blooming yet.

My Cinnamon Basil also is blooming but is not getting an award since that is not a desirable quality in a Basil plant.

Happy growing , Hannah