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FLOWER
SERIES
Tending Guide
SEED KIT TYPE:
PLANTING DATE:
English
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C ONTENT S Planting Your Garden Plant Your Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2 Tending Your Garden Remove Domes . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3 Add Water . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Feed Garden . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4 Raise Lamp Hood (Light[s]) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5 Keep Your Garden Healthy . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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P gnitnla Y ruo g nedra A little bit of care for your Garden will ensure rapid growth and beautiful blooms . You will see sprouts within 2 weeks . In 6-10 weeks your plants will start to flower . Shortly after that, you will have a garden full of gorgeous blossoms . lant Your Garden P Each Flower Series Seed Kit (except Cascading Petunias) comes with Seed Pods that are labeled, Tall, Medium or Short . This helps to determine the best position for each Seed Pod in the Grow Surface, ensuri
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t gnidne Y ruo g nedra Please take a moment to review this section shortly after planting your Garden (see page 15 for Reminders About Planting Your Garden) . emove Domes R • A few days after planting your AeroGarden, tiny plants will appear through the holes in each Seed Pod Label . When this occurs, remove the Domes from each Seed Pod with emerging plants and discard or recycle . Do not remove the Label! • To reduce plant stress, we recommend removing the Domes shortly after the
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dd Water A There should always be water in the Bowl of your AeroGarden. For instructions, see the “Add Water Using a Spouted Container” section in your Quick Start Guide. • Use room-temperature water. Very hot or very cold water will hurt your plants . • We recommend using municipal tap, bottled or purified water. Well or softened water SHOULD ! NOT be used because the extra minerals in these sources may be harmful to aeroponically grown plants . Quick Start Guides available at: www.aer
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aise Lamp Hood (Light[s]) R As your plants begin to grow, you should provide 1-2” (2.5-5cm) of space between the top of plants and the light(s). For instructions, refer to the “Raise Lamp Hood (Light[s])” section in your Quick Start Guide. If Grow Bulb(s) are too close to plants, the leaves may brown and burn . If they are too far away, your plants will “stretch” toward the light(s) and look unhealthy . eep Your Garden Healthy K Keeping a watchful eye on your Garden is not only a joy, b
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Check Plant Layout to Prevent Shading To ensure each plant gets enough light and has room to grow, you may need to rearrange the Seed Pods in your AeroGarden . Within the first 3 to 4 weeks of planting your Garden you may start to notice variations in how fast or slow a plant grows and in plant habit (e .g ., spreading or upright, feathery or dense leaves, bushy or cascading) . If it looks like some plants are shading other plants, use the following guidelines to rearrange your Seed Pods
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eep Your Garden Healthy (Continued) K Prune Plants to Prevent Shading The following pages offer several pruning methods to prevent shading for a variety of flower types . Plants with Branching Leaves To optimize the growth of your Garden and ensure strong plants with bountiful flowers, prune large leaves that shade other plants in your Garden . • Remove large leaves or branches with scissors . Marigold leaf shading smaller Mimulus. • Prune where leaf or branch meets another stem .
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Quick Start Guides available at: www.aerogardensupport.com Plants with Leaves Growing from Base Calendula and Gazania are examples of flowers that should be pruned with this method . • Remove large leaves that shade other plants with scissors . • Make cut at base of leaf . • Tuck smaller leaves to give the shaded plant more light . Photo at right shows how plant might look after pruning larger leaves and tucking smaller leaves. Notice that the Calendula is no longer shading the G
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eep Your Garden Healthy (Continued) K Prune Plants to Prevent Shading (Continued) Plants with Long Stems • Cut branches that shade other plants with scissors . • Prune just above a set of leaves (growth point) . Photo at right shows how plant might look after pruning long stems. Notice that the Petunia is no longer shading the Vinca. 9 Tending Your Garden
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Quick Start Guides available at: www.aerogardensupport.com Remove Dead Flower Blossoms – Deadheading Removing dead flower blossoms (deadheading) encourages your plant to produce more flowers . When blossoms begin to fade, wilt, wither, turn brown or just start to look unattractive, it’s time to deadhead . How often you’ll need to deadhead depends on what’s growing in your Garden . Some plants have short-lived blossoms that last less than a week, such as Mimulus and Dianthus . Others, such
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eep Your Garden Healthy (Continued) K Remove Dead Flower Blossoms – Deadheading (Continued) Plants with Flowers Growing on Long Stems Calendula, Geranium, Lavender, Stock and Snapdragons are some examples of plants that do well with this method of deadheading . • Cut flower stem at base . Plants that Drop Spent Flowers and/or Have Many Small Flowers Gypsophila, Lobelia, Melampodium and Nemesia are some examples of plants that do not need deadheading . • Some plants drop their spent
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Quick Start Guides available at: www.aerogardensupport.com Helpful Hints… Dead Blossom HELPFUL HINT #1: Deadhead flowers as they start to fade to avoid accidentally removing unopened blossoms . At a quick Unopened glance, a flower bud Blossom (petunia, shown at right) can look like a dead blossom . HELPFUL HINT #2: Deadhead flowers when light(s) are on . Some blossoms such as Gazania (shown below), close up when light(s) are off and can look like a dead blossom . Unopened Open Blos
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eep Your Garden Healthy (Continued) K Prune Heavy Branches to Keep Garden Neat and Compact Some branches may become laden with so many blossoms that they droop over the edge of the Garden . To keep your plants compact: • Cut heavy branches (as flowers begin to die) not more than 6” (15cm) from the tip with scissors or by pinching with fingers . • Prune just above a growth point, where one or more leaves grow from the stem . • After pruning your flowers, lower Lamp Hood if nece
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lant Problems & Remedies P These pictures show plants from a Flower Series Seed Kit that are stressed. Follow suggestions to restore your Garden’s health . Wilted Plants are not getting enough water . Check water level . Burned Plant is too close to Grow Bulb(s) . Raise the Lamp Hood . Curled Inside Dome Dome was left on too long . Immediately remove Dome . Tending Your Garden 14
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a PP secidne eminders About Planting R Your Garden Please use the Quick Start Guide included in your original AeroGarden box for more detailed setup instructions. If you no longer have your Quick Start Guide, you can find the latest version of it at… www .aerogardensupport .com . Setting up Your Garden Did you add Starting Is the Lamp Arm firmly 1 9 Nutrient tablet(s)? inserted into the Base? 10 Did you record Are Grow Bulb(s) 2 planting date on the firmly insert
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uestions & Answers–Light(s) Q Do I need to turn light(s) on and off manually? No . Your AeroGarden includes a built-in timer that turns your light(s) on and off at specific intervals . These intervals are designed to maximize the growth of your flowers . The timing system started as soon as you plugged in your AeroGarden . Does it matter what time of day the light(s) go off? Yes. Flowers require a daily dark period in order to produce blossoms . For optimum growth conditions, we recommend
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roubleshooting T What do I do when a Grow Bulb burns out? Replacement bulbs can be ordered from your retailer or at www .aerogardensupport .com . What should I do if my Grow Bulb(s) aren’t working? Make sure Grow Bulb(s) are firmly inserted in the Lamp Hood . Also check that your Garden is plugged into a working electrical outlet and the Lamp Cord is plugged into the Lamp Hood . What if I want to move my Garden to another location? Go right ahead! Keep in mind that each AeroGarden mod
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Quick Start Guides available at: www.aerogardensupport.com What if I see bugs? Occasionally, bugs might decide to visit your flowers . If you see bugs, you will probably see aphids or spider mites which probably found their way into your home on clothing or cut flowers . They are clever about hiding under leaves and in the joints between leaves and plant stems, so they can be difficult to see at first . Initial signs that you have aphids are either your plants look unhealthy or you may
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roubleshooting (Continued) T How do I take care of my Garden when I go out of town? Add water to raise the level up to “Fill To Here .” A newly planted Garden with Domes removed may not need care for up to 2 weeks . However, if your Garden is mature and you will be out of town for several days, we recommend that you make arrangements for someone to care for your Garden while you are away . What do I do when my Garden has completed its growth cycle? For step-by-step instructions regar
