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Comment by epiccoleman | Hacker News Reader

I'm basically sold, and would have already ordered, but am I understanding correctly that what's for sale on their site is... one flower for $29? I could easily see myself dropping some money to have a glow-in-the-dark-garden, but it seems like at that price, getting any kind of "coverage" would be cost prohibitive.

Yes, yes, they can be propagated, but that's going to take a few plants if I'm to have enough to have more than a few odd glowing plants here and there.

Either way, this is super cool.

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It's not 'one flower' - it's one petunia plant. They grow 6-12 inches tall, and 1-4ft wide, with multiple flowers. It's like a small sprawly bush. From the FAQ:

> The Firefly Petunia is shipped as a small plant rooted in a 4” pot. As flowers tend to suffer in shipment, the petunia will arrive with developing buds. It may contain a few newly opened flowers. With good growing conditions, it will quickly attain about 8 to 10 inches in size with abundant white flowers.

Ah, ok, that's what I was wondering about. I was picturing something much smaller. That seems a lot more reasonable - still expensive for a single plant, but we are talking about something pretty unique.

It’s a pretty reasonable price for a specialty plant. Plants are cheaper at places like Home Depot but those plants are also sick and bring bugs in to your house that can infect your other house plants.

How easy would it be to propagate into multiple plants?

Petunias are close to an ideal plant for propagating, it's super easy. I'd bet it's one of the reasons Light Bio chose this type of plant to start out with, it's easy and fast to scale up if needed.

Example of propagating cuttings: https://youtu.be/eK5Ygp5RHTo

Basically, Create a fresh wound, hit it with some hormones, put it in some seed starting gardening mix, add some water, and then cover/protect from direct harsh sun so the clone doesn't lose water faster than it can take it up.

You can even propagate from the leaves: https://youtu.be/4_gsOwWQ6Pw

Do be aware that petunias do NOT like temps under 50 degrees, and freezing will generally wipe them out.

Just wait until you learn about tulips! I never understood tulip mania until my wife started planting them.

Tulips are annuals, so they only are expected to grow one season. You often order the bulbs in summer and they're delivered in fall, and then planted in early winter before the ground gets too cold. They're often less than a dollar per bulb, but if you've ever seen a nice arrangement, hundreds of tulips is not all that much.

The first year my wife told me she was spending ~$300 on tulips I thought she was crazy. That spring when I saw what they looked like I okayed doubling the order for the next year. It's really a delight to see spring announced by your yard exploding in beautiful flowers.

I have some good news for you! While tulips do not reliably come back every year, sometimes skipping a year, they are actually perennials.

I have even better news. They multiply too!

indeed! my first tulip plantings had additional tulips coming up several inches from where I planted them, as well as the original tulip bulbs planted. how did I know they weren't some random tulips? because I planted some very beautiful specialty bulbs I had never seen before, and that's what came up.

really looking forward to spring to see them all come up again.

tulips aren't annuals where I live in California (Bay Area). They come up in the same place year after year and even spread a little.

Wait until you learn that some collectors of Galanthus (Snowdrops) have paid £1850 (~$2300) for one bulb of a new variety.

To most, they are simply the same green and white plants, but to some, they are quite the obsession.

[1] https://www.gardensillustrated.com/news/snowdrop-bulb-sells-...

I'm going to buy one of these and take cuttings and root them. I have a indoor growing area so I could just keep taking cuttings and making a ton of plants. I'm sure this violates their TOS though.

From the site:

Can I propagate or breed the Firefly Petunias? Our Firefly Petunias are protected under patent, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use.

Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use so your scenario is fine. Selling a propagated plant to your neighbor (or anyone else) violates the law.

> Propagation IS permitted as long as it's for personal use so your scenario is fine.

How do you come to this conclusion from the FAQ answer above?

Easy; "Our Firefly Petunias are PROTECTED UNDER PATENT, and as such, propagation and breeding are not permitted. These petunias are sold exclusively for personal use."

Patent protection is soley for protection from commercial use by non patent holders. This is why they put in the last line.

Patent protection does not stop me from building an equivalent of any item protected by patent. I cannot sell it commercially.

> Patent protection does not stop me from building an equivalent of any item protected by patent.

Legally it does, at least in the United States. That said, I doubt this company will search your backyard in the middle of the night to make sure you don't have more glowing petunias than you ordered from their website.

> Legally it does

Yeah, that's my impression of patent laws, too. It's not some weird open source license, where you are only prohibited from commercial use. I remember advocates of patents telling me how it's better than keeping inventions secret, but I think in practice, there really isn't much of a difference... The whole thing needs an overhaul.

> That said, I doubt this company will search your backyard in the middle of the night to make sure you don't have more glowing petunias than you ordered from their website.

You read this take all over the thread, but I really think we shouldn't argue like that, when discussing law. Thing is, if the company really wanted to, they could cause legal trouble, which means you are vulnerable to them - which shifts the power balance between civil entities. Somewhat similar to e.g. drug criminalization. You likely get away with minor possession, but if the police officer doesn't like you, you may suffer severe consequences still. For example, if you were to publicly criticize the company for whatever reason, you may have to make sure to not (ever) post pictures of your glowing garden publicly.

These legal vulnerabilities add up and may in total change your behavior subtly so people in power do not not like you. If you want to form a union, protest against the police, are black/gay/..., or want to publish dirt on your local politician, you better make sure you didn't take too many cuttings from glowing petunias somewhere.

I stand corrected, I believe they could get an injunction to prevent me from propagating the petunias (currently on order!), but likely wouldn't be worth the trouble.

$29 plus $24 shipping, so $53 for one flower.

Not quite, you can get 3 for $107 because it applies some automatic discount and shipping is not a linear cost.

I had free petunia plants last year in the pots the previous years petunias grew. No, these were not the same plants as they are annuals that got pulled in the fall. Never thought about them seeding themselves like that. Maybe that $53 plant can do the same thing so you get a second year out of it essentially halving the cost???

We love us some volunteers

I very much doubt that these will breed true from seed

You could just root some cutting and put under a grow light and plant in the spring.

Isn't that the very definition of propagating the line which is protected via patent? I too doubt these would grow from a seed, but at least growing a plant from a seed is not patentable regardless of what Monsanto thinks.

I doubt propagation is enforceable either. They mentioned 'breeding' too, so they seem to have the same understanding as Monsanto.

It's really only enforceable if you attempt to make money from it or even just distribute it as your own to the point they find out about you. If you do anything to share the new plants that prevents them from making money, you'll be "guilty". If you do it just to fill in your backyard, they'll never find out about you.

There's a discount at 3 plants and free shipping at 10.

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