6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
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.
I would wait, simply until you allow at least one mushroom to become fully mature, as the spawn looks rather like whisps of smoke, released from beneath the fully expanded cap, by the gills below, prior to drying up..
Place a fully grown cap with the mature gills facing downward on a plate, cleaned as well as possible & dried, to collect the 'spore print'.
Otherwise, if you were to damage the mycelium network, you may disrupt the growing cycle. Isn't that why they harvest, by cutting them at the base, as opposed to pulling them up & then removing the base, afterward?
I think I may have once re-used, a Shiitake inoculated, tree log, ( that required banging it hard, to resemble falling to the ground, in the forest, to begin production.) simply by placing a Portabello cap on top... (I stood the log, upright, in a large saucer, to keep it moisture level; ample)
There is an Italian supplier (Bavicchi?) that I used for Pioppino, that was available within the U.S quite inexpensively ( use search terms Italian Seeds + mushroom spawn, or spores) if in case it is the other Italian Seed source, here in the States, if you'd like to try those, with growing instructions...
Yes, they are from that seed brand co., through Italian seed and tool . They offer 5 varieties of edible mushroom spawn at $12.95,including the regular 'white button' kind, plus shipping, with the instructions located at the top of the online page, to place an order.
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.