I am really, really bad with plants. I’ve at one point fail to grow dandelions. That’s right- I planted dandelion seeds in a pot, and watered them, and nothing came up. I can cause previously healthy plants to keel over just by walking through the room.
I’ve been trying to get dayflowers to grow in my backyard for a few years now. I like blue flowers, and they spring up on their own elsewhere in my neighborhood. But I’ve had no joy at home.
I’ve tried planting them by the roots and watering them. I’ve tried collecting the seedpods. I’ve tried just tossing the whole plant in the grass and crossing my fingers, darn it.
I mean, weeds are supposed to sprout up like, well, weeds. It’s not like these things need to be cosseted in a greenhouse. Am I doing something really wrong here, or is it just my lethal anti-plant rays at work?
Commelina (which is what the photo looks like) can be grown from seed or from small tubers sold commercially. Follow the directions, don’t drown or underwater them, give full sun and they’ll do fine.
In response to the “black thumb” thing - it doesn’t exist. If you want to grow something, learn about it and pay attention to what you’re doing, you’ll have success.
I have had poor long-term results with growing African violets. It’s not because of some Evil Influence or death ray, I’m just not doing something right and I’ll figure out what it is eventually.
Commelina are pretty easy, like weeds to grow, so I can think of a couple of things you might not be doing right.
Are you digging up the plant while in flower to transplant? While that’s the easy time to ID it, that’s the worst time to try and transplant it. When plants are giving all their energy in flowering, they are not like-minded in devoting energy to rooting. Transplanting a plant in flower is a hardship for the plant. If that’s Your best time to do that, best to dig up a large rootball, then cut back the plant to 6" of growth, so it’s not trying to flower. Be sure you are getting plenty of root, with soil around it. And, dayflowers bloom in summer, so make sure you don’t forget to water in the hot months.
Commelina was named rather slyly and lovely, by Linnaeus, after three Dutch brothers, named Commelin/Commelijin: Two of the brothers were accomplished botanists, the other , not so much, so the naming refers to the two prominent petals of the flower, and the diminished one. Gotta admit, I love Linnaeus for that smart attribute, carrying down onto now.
Dayflower, being a tradescantia, is also easily rootable by cuttings, like really easy as things go, so you can take about two node cuttings and set them in water and they’ll root readily: pot them up, good to go.
You may want to look at the bigger native Trad species;bigger blue flowers, but, variable, and some hate the spreading. I like it. and it’s pretty easy to remove if you don’t like spreading.
