6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Cut open a gala apple for breakfast, and all of the seeds were sprouted. One even had roots. Since reading this thread I have since put it in some dirt with some water. I have the perfect pot for it but couldn't find it quickly so used an old egg carton I was saving for seedlings.
Have you read the history of the Granny Smith Apple? It grew from a seedling in a scrap pile in the corner of an old Woman named Smith. It might grow into a nice apple tree or it may not. Most apple cultivars today started from an unknown seedling. Granny Smith Apples have sprouted seeds in quite often.
The mat itself apparently can't handle things. It just won't heat up more than about 7F above ambient. However it is usually sunny here all day and the sunlight plus the heat mat usually keeps the soil temp right around 80F. It drops at night but that is ok, its daytime temps I need to keep up around 80F.
I've had fair germination of the curry leaf seed. Could have been better and most likely will be next time I try this. I probably will not bother to get a herp thermostat since it is clear that it is the seed mat itself that can't generate the heat, regardless of the wide range built in to the thermostat.
Isn't that just tindora? Or a close relative at least. I can't grow tindora here because it winter kills (and it doesn't seem to be all that productive the first year), but maybe those would be a good substitute.
Of course you'd need a seed source first, LOL!
It isn't a big loss, I planted more seeds as most packets have way more than I could need and I'm usually gifting seeds, but just.... very puzzling.
I can see them most of the day (I spend half the day staring at my precious new garden as I work) and didn't see any bird or insect activity worth noting.
The cups didn't get drier or wetter than the others either for some fast rot or something to happen.
This is totally inexplicable, and I suspect my puzzlement is more from my inexperience. There has to be some explanation, just that I don't know it yet.
If the flats are outside, it's a matter of a few seconds for a bird to come along and grab a few seeds. Peck-peck - given the small surface area of soil in a seed starting flat (per cell) chances are good they'd get a few.
You know what they say - even a blind pig finds an acorn once in awhile.
I just can't imagine trying to keep seedlings alive, in trays, for an entire year! I'm starting some now & try to get them in after several months at the most, for the slowest growers. Summer, being easily fatal, as you mentioned, just experience missing one day of watering, during hot sunny skies, low humidity & drying wind & then it can be fatal dessication...
As you noticed in your #4, you're much better off, using a good quality seed starting mixture. Or buy bulk peat moss, mixing in perlite & vermiculite, according to varying moisture level or drainage needs of the species. Not sure how you protect, over winter, to prevent roots from freezing fatatlity.
Keeping in mind, that you ought to sow with two different species in one tray, at least trying to attempt to put together, those with similar water requirements & sunlight or shade needs.
I'm not sure I would even use shade cloth, unless germination calls for darkness to germinate. but place trays, if it is needed, using high shade, from trees with leaves, even if it be that from Pine.
I think, if you try planting out, long before an entire year has elapsed, stunted in a seed tray if it does survive, your success rate will improve greatly. For example, even those sold at the garden center may have had the benefit of a head start in a greenhouse, but are meant to be planted out, shortly after purchase. Be it autumn, or spring...
& if perennial in nature in particular, they want or need more room to grow their extensive root system, than that of seed starting trays. After all, isn't that why they are usually referred to as 'seed -starting- trays'? hth
I would winter sow them ..native perennials do really well this way . You can space them by seeding thinly and they can stay in the milk jugs for a whole season cycle.
Here is a link that might be useful: Winter sowing FAQ
You realise I am sure that a rose grown from seed will not be the same as the parent plant unless it is a species rose. The plant will take some years to flower and until it does you will not know what it will look like or if it will be worth keeping. The only way to get an identical hybrid rose is by taking a cutting or, as commercial growers do, grafting. It might be a good idea to ask this question over on the rose forum for more expert advice.
Here is a link that might be useful: Rose Forum
The typical suggestion for fertilizing seedlings is use product dissolved in water but dilute the strength by half of the package directions. I will begin even more cautiously than that with my own seedlings, and reduce the strength by as much as 75% or using only 1/4 strength as would be used for mature plants.
I don't know what products are available to you there as a home gardener, but you might find this study interesting:
Here is a link that might be useful: Comparison coir to sphagnum
For some reason i never considered that earwigs could possibly ever be a problem and we do have quite a few. I did lose allot of green bean and cucumber seedlings that were completely uprooted and now some of my seedlings. What a gem this forum - I've just put out two large traps, fingers crossed i hope i get slugs, snails and earwigs!
Excellent tip!
Hello all, just an update from our from Italy- Italian cypress seeds. After they sprouted themselves in the fridge on the wet paper towel inside the zippie, they are now 12 in tall! I have only lost 1. They are still in my windowsill in Houston and will take them out to the yard in the spring. Will let you know how it goes!!
I am zone 7a and although Lantana can be invasive in Florida, Texas and other gulf coast states and can be perennial as far North as zone 8, it is not here-wish it were more persistent. I usually have a volunteer or two, but nothing like an invasion unless you count the butterflies that dance in attendance all summer.
I have never had difficulty starting the seeds on a heat mat in February for summer bloom, but if you had only one variety with yellow blooms and no others to pollinate you will probably not get the rainbow of colors you seek. My experience has been that saved seeds yield plants that bloom in colors very similar to the plants you collected them from, even the hybrids. Yellow hybrid's seeds tend to produce plants that bloom in shades of yellow, often with white. The chief difference in the seed grown plants from the parents seems to be in habit. They are often more rangy and taller than the hybrid plant they are derived from. Germination can be erratic and just when you think all of the seeds that are going to germinate have, another one or two will surprise you.
If you have one of the species other than camara then you will almost certainly have plants that are the same color flowers you started with. Lantana. horrida will be yellow and orange, Lantana montevidensis will be lavender, etc.
For best results, you want to keep temperatures at 70-80 degrees F during the day and 55-60 degrees F at night. So the garage is way too hot for seedlings and adult plants alike. Also, did you cover your seedlings up with a dome? Seedlings don't have roots so they tend to dry out quickly. Domes keep humidity high which keeps them from drying out.
Overwatering, too cold, or too hot.
My money is on "too hot".
Even if you get the air temp down around 80 or so, the soil in your flats could be significantly hotter. I have never grown in a green house at all. However I have routinely started seeds in sunny south facing windows. And I have discovered that not all sunny south facing windows are equal.
Where I am now, the sun in my south facing windows is great. So great, in fact, that even though it is October and somewhat chilly out (relatively speaking), the sunward side of my seed starting flats heats up to well over 100F - I measured it at 106F and then panicked.
I have since shaded the sunward side of the flat with folded white paper towels and this has reduced the soil temp on that side by 10F to 15F (over what it is with no shading).
But the air temp isn't much over 78F to 80F. It is the effects of direct sunlight on the flat itself.
My money's on the 100+ temps you were reporting.