My flower seedlings are coming along fairly well. Here’s an update on each kind:

• Geraniums — outstanding! growing nice, stocky-stemmed plants
• Delosperma iceplant — good, but the little guys haven’t grown very fast
• Verbena — very good, getting taller and getting their second set of true leaves. But about half the seeds didn’t germinate in the baggie. I’ve brought the seeds back into the kitchen where it’s warmer than the basement, but they’re still in a dark cabinet, since they’re supposed to need darkness to sprout.
• Dianthus — pretty good, but they also seem to have stalled in growth
• Rudbeckia — extremely well! Tonight, I cut out the competing seedlings for the first ones I sprouted. Now, there is only one seedling growing in each jiffy pellet.
• CA poppy — the first ones sown are doing quite well, but there are some others I sowed a little late, after leaving the sprouted seeds in the baggie too long, and I think it weakened the sprouts. They’re barely hanging on.
• Heliotrope — two of these are now sprouting, and I hope the rest of them will start sprouting very soon.
• Lavatera — not doing well at all. The seeds in the baggie are not sprouting after several weeks, and some that I put in potting soil with plastic lid over them also aren’t showing any sign of life. I soaked some more Lavatera seeds in water for a day or two, and now they’re in a baggie. I hope they sprout soon!

I took my maple seeds out of the refigerator today (Dana’s happy about that!) and planted them in little six packs with the other seeds in the basement. Half are Japanese maples, and half are a tall street-tree maple with golden leaves in the fall.

OK, here’s the lawn update: I got it mowed and aerated last week, and I just spread out the fertilizer today. It’s supposed to rain tomorrow, so this is a good time to get it soaked in. It’s starting to green up a little, but not really a lot yet.