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aliska12000

Failures or are they?

aliska12000
12 years ago

Be careful before you throw them on the compost heap. Some is the nature of the plants, take two winters to sprout.

As some of you know the winter before last I just planted new old in between and trades. Then a tree limb came down and trashed almost all my neat containers. So we cleared them to the side, and they sat like that all year and into the winter, too discouraged to mess with any of it.

So spring comes, and what do I have (the ones I can still tell what they were), 5 rhubarb plants (3 large and 2 babies in 3 pepsi containers), 4 Virginia bluebells, and hooray, 2 raspberry plants!! I got in a trade, can't remember from whom. They're $9.95 apiece some places. I think they're black ones. One blue columbine. There's also some pretty wretched Sweet William and what's left could be anything. Some pansies bloomed in their pots last year, could have saved them if I'd watered and planted them but weren't what I wanted. But I lost an awful lot from the huge tree limb.

I guess some seeds are like that, won't germinate the first winter or will come back in their pots. I've seen photos here of plants dumped on the compost heap that eventually germinated and flowered.

Just a reminder that you may want to hold some over for another winter, not sure if or how you'd want to do that. I've got to get these planted; my daughter said she'd help me.

Comments (11)

  • countrycarolyn
    12 years ago

    Congrats on your suvivors!!

    This post gives me hope, I have several containers that haven't germinated. So here is to crossing my fingers!!

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    From my experience if they're annuals and haven't sprouted by sometime in July, I'd probably toss them. It's been slow to warm up so I wouldn't give up on them.

    These are all perennials, and they could have sprouted sometime last year and I just didn't notice. Or they could have needed to be stratified for the first winter, happens in nature.

    I'm not one to bother with the fridge treatment, but others have written about it. There are doubtless certain plants that need it.

    I just read that bluebells take about 3 years to mature enough to bloom. The rhubarb probably shouldn't be harvested until the third year which is why I never bothered with it before, but this is the kind with the pretty red stems. Who knows how long the raspberries will take?

    I spent a lot of money that year on seeds; it's a gamble. I don't mind losing some except I had a whole lot of delphiniums where lots had sprouted; none survived. And the ones from the previous year I got planted, I had about 5 plants, and only one is out there now. I had lots of nice lupines sprout, too. All those took the worst hit, knocked a heavy bench over onto them what the branches didn't smash.

  • ladyrose65
    12 years ago

    I made "Mash Pans" from prematurely dumping. I believe I finally have a Canna Seed coming up. I found 2 daylily sprouts. The others I don't recognize.

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Maybe I should do that with ones that are probably weeds, give them a little more time, hard to tell what they might be.

    The second winter took the soil level way down in the cups, not so with the cells. My daughter dumped all of the assorted large ones. Oh well. I'm getting some potting soil dampened to repot the raspberries so they can get a little stronger and maybe set in the ground late summer with time enough to settle in B4 winter. Some tree seedlings came up in a bunch of what I can id, and I've disburbed the roots some by trying to gently tease them out. They're tough.

    I'm happy to have anything, found a couple more raspberries, another alpine columbine and a whole bunch of jack-in-the-pulpits.

    The biggest shame is losing the delphiniums, pretty blues, and assorted lupines which sprouted almost like magic, bunches. At this point, I'm happiest with the raspberries and rhubarb believe it or not. I saved all my pkts but can't find the rhubarb. The raspberries I got in trade, so thanks again from whomever it was, didn't really expect them to do anything. Bristol black ones, just what I wanted.

    Have to move on. I'd like my tree stump out of there but would cost a fortune. My neighbor and granddaughter said I should keep it. Well, they can transplant it then. I don't like stumps. Maybe the raspberries would conceal it or something viney.

  • northerner_on
    12 years ago

    As I said on another post, last year I left 3 containers that had not germinated out over winter, and lo and behold I have Rugosa roses, red cardinal flower, and pasque flower babies this spring. I almost dumped them because I needed to re-use the containers. Lucky me!!!

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Good for you! My rose seeds that turned out not to be seeds kaput. Never tried any others. Over on the OGR rose forum they do it, it's the stratification they need. Some do the fridge thing, sprout on a moist paper towel, then plant the sprouts! But another winter did it for you.

    I planted cardinal flowers, so maybe there are a couple out there, don't know what the seedlings look like. So many plants don't produce volunteers, at least very often. That ought to tell us something.

    It's like a bonus, isn't it?

    We hit a record high yesterday, 93 degrees. Warm this morning but should cool back down in a couple days. I'm stubbornly not turning on the ac yet.

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    I'm waiting for my upgrade to Photoshop CS5 to arrive in the mail, and iPhoto published my photos in raw. I don't have time to mess with the conversion (or iPhoto) so I wanted to see if raw would embed and test the code. Man, I miss my own webspace and ftp uploader! And Photoshop! flickr is a huge hassle compared to that but it's the only way I have now.

    {{gwi:396204}}

    Hmmm. It worked for me, later I'll start a thread, have a couple questions. Well, flickr stripped off the exif and converted to jpg. Fine. Hope others can see it here.

    Think these are my bluebells and jack-in-the-pulpits; I hope that's what I've got here.

  • gardenweed_z6a
    12 years ago

    Think these are my bluebells...

    I'm no expert but those medium green, smooth, oval leaves resemble the ones on what I think are Virginia bluebells I've got growing where I am.

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Good, thank you. Were it not for my log that describes that flat and your confirmation, I wouldn't be sure. Think there are one or two more strays out there. Most of my careful labelling was lost, destroyed or illegible now.

    Some are dirt logged. The ones left that are still very legible are strips of index cards written in pencil and taped on the 2-liter bottles.

    And my daughter trying to help get that mess out of the way got most of what was left all mixed up. Well, I appreciated her help anyway, as I was too discouraged, didn't realize how many she just dumped somewhere and threw at the back of the house, a large pile for recycling. The city will not recycle plastic drinking cups for some reason. I'm picking up pieces of those and throwing a bunch away of the goners or transplanted into new cups. I don't want all those pieces of plastic in my yard. Luckily nobody complained about the mess back there for over a year.

  • terrene
    12 years ago

    Well, I'm still waiting for my Fringe tree (Chionanthus virginicus) seeds to sprout, they were sowed 1 1/2 years ago and no sign of them! They are the only container of seeds that I haven't dumped at the end of the season. Now I try to dump the soil in an inconspicuous spot in the garden - maybe there's a stray seed in there that could sprout?

    Aliska, my- Lobelia cardinalis self-sows regularly, I love finding its little seedlings as it is a such a gorgeous plant. I will never have to sow it again! Here's a pic of little self-sown seedlings -
    {{gwi:396205}}

  • aliska12000
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    terrene, thank you for posting that. I haven't seen any like that yet. Some are still tiny seedlings and could be junk that self sowed. I'm not throwing anything out unless I can tell it's total junk like almost all grass in one. Let them get a little bigger and then decide.

    I do have several out there that are don't know how to describe them, nested and circular with the smaller leaves on top.

    I guess I'll struggle with the code and post the rest of my photos in a new thread.

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