GardenDesk

Fun with Eye Grow this Winter

A couple years ago I wrote a little post about Eye Grow, a fun little gardening novelty that I bought for my niece and nephews. Early this winter I began getting emails and comments on that post about people not being pleased with their Eye Grows. I looked through my gardening stuff and found that I still had one left from back then, so we decided to give it a try.

Even being two years old, we had no trouble getting it to grow. My daughter had fun changing its "hair style" a couple times. Right now it is just wild.

I thought that maybe people had trouble with them because the Eye Grow instructions aren't very clear. Here are my very simplified instructions with pictures:

After opening your new Eye Grow, the most important thing that you need to do is soak the entire head in water (upper left pic). Hold it under water until there are no more air bubbles. You need it to be completely saturated in order to sprout the "hair".

Next, fill the cup with water and put the head sock on top. Be sure the rope is in the water (upper right pic). This rope wicks the water up to the growing medium to keep it moist.

Then put the original clear part of the package over the whole Eye Grow to form a greenhouse effect which will aid germination. My extra tip here is to run some warm water over the head just before covering it so the trapped air will start off warmer than the outside air.

Then wait until the seeds sprout,  take the cover off and put in on a window sill or under a florescent lamp. Other than picking the mouth sticker you want, that's really all you have to do. Next, just watch it grow AND REMEMBER TO ADD WATER TO THE BASE CUP EVERY DAY.

After our Eye Grow's hair got long, my daughter decided it needed pigtails.

Instant girl Eye Grow!
Just like hair, the grass in the pigtails continued to grow until it started looking a little strange:

See how it grew out and started looking messy? Also look at the snow outside! Since the hairdo starting looking bad, my daughter gave it a haircut:

Now it could be a boy again! We also decided he needed a new mouth at this point (it comes with 8 different mouth stickers).

His hair kept growing and growing and now it looks like this:

Wild! I guess its time for a new style again.

So where can you buy these Eye Grow planters?

That is a good question. I found mine at Michael's. They actually had holiday themed ones there as well this Christmas but now the Michael's near me has none. I did see them at my local party discount store though. The only place online that I could find them is Amazon . They are listed as Eye Grow: Only Add Water! (Styles May Vary).

Did you catch that "Styles may Vary" part? Unfortunately right now the different faces aren't listed separately on Amazon. You don't get to pick the color or the eye expressions. I guess that's okay if you want to be surprised but I would rather be able to pick which style to buy. Please let me know if you have seen these Eye Grows for sale somewhere else on the internet.

Spring is almost here now, but I'm glad we had this little Eye Grow guy to entertain us a bit this winter.

Happy Early St. Patrick's Day!

Eye Grow: New Fun Gardening toy for kids!

You never know where you might find a fun garden-related item. I usually start looking at all of the garden centers this time of year to try to find a cure for my Spring Fever. Every once in a while you discover something when and where you're not even looking. This happened to me last weekend when my family went to Michael's craft store because my daughter was looking for something to use on her American Girl Doll website. That's where I found these cool little "Eye Grow" plants at Michael's.

After looking into them further, it seems that you can only buy them at Michael's and on Amazon

The Eye Grow is actually a nylon mesh "head" filled with soil. The top of head contains ryegrass seeds that grow to become the hair.

These remind me of the Chia Pets a little, but I like these Eye Grows better. I think they are more fun for kids because they are pretty cheap and very colorful with big cartoon-like eyes. Each one comes with a sticker sheet of mouths so you can design the expression yourself.

I searched the Internet to find out more about them and found nothing. The company listed on the Eye Grow boxes is Sourcing International. When I searched for Sourcing International, all I found is a site about their Grow-A-Head products. Here is one of the pictures from that site, their grow-a-pets:

I've never seen these before. It's strange that they don't mention their Eye Grow products at all. I couldn't find any references to the eye-grow anywhere on the Internet. As a matter of fact, even the website that I got the above Grow A Head picture from is no longer available. Now when I search for the Grow A Head products, all I find is a couple listed on amazon like this Grow-A-Head Think Pink Breast Cancer Awareness .

Even this seems to only be available in limited quantities. Why would a company make products that you can't even buy? Anyway, I can't wait to start growing my Eye Grows. I am giving some of them to my niece and nephew, but I will post pictures of the ones we keep as soon as their grass hair has grown out. These are perfect for a little Winter gardening fun. A year or so ago, we had fun with the Magic Sproutz secret message plants in a similar way. Come to think of it, I haven't been able to find those again either.

So what do you think about the Eye Grow plants (or the Grow-A-Head plants)? Has anyone else seen these? Would you buy them if you saw them, or am I just a big kid for thinking they are cool? I'd love to hear your thoughts!