6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Hi - This is my first year growing luffas. I used the baggie method of germinating seeds and I successfully germinated all of the luffa seeds in about 8 days. I am hardening them off as we speak. You may want to try that method it is super quick and easy! I am germinating more luffa seeds today. In fact, the majority of my seedlings this year were germinated in baggies.
A couple of baggies, some paper towel or coffee filters, a little water, and a week and you should be in business. Best wishes.
LC
Hi Steve. We are in Ashland City (Cheatham County) and hope to be open to the public at large very soon. We purchased our farm in October and between the rain and the certification process, we are WAY behind schedule. But we do have some wonderful medicinal babies coming up quite nicely! :)
Many Blessings!
Tracy
It's too hot in the summer for the Himalayan Blue Poppies to do well here so I finally gave up. Our summers can be in the upper 90's with 90% humidity for weeks at a time. As for the others I'd just direct sow and see how they do. They don't like to be transplanted and don't need any pre-treatment to sprout. You don't have anything to lose by trying.
libael, you did kind of get left behind in this thread. While you may have a chance with some of the annual type poppies, you also might want to consider the climate of origin of some of your seeds - mountains of Turkey for the oriental poppies, normally thought to do best in US zones 3-8 where they go late summer dormant, then return with the arrival of cooler temps and Fall rains.
I'm not sure why we yearn to grow things that don't do well in our own zones, but somehow those out-of-reach plants can be what we covet the most...then can take the failures as a reflection of our gardening talents :) I'd love to be able to grow bouganvalia, citrus outdoors, or the orchids you mention but I'm old enough to know now I'd just be sending myself down the road to dissapointment and frustration.
I know little about Costa Rica but a quick web search shows many, many botanical and public gardens so apparently there's a strong gardening interest there. I also don't know how conveniently you are located to any of these beautiful displays, but if you have the chance, a visit with notepad in pocket might really open doors for you in growing some remarkable plants those of us in temperate climates couldn't attempt....Just a thought :)
Lupine grows from seed, and can be bought at almost any store that sells flower seeds. And yes, it's a beautiful plant. :) I love the leaves.
That'd need to be a reasonably big bird to swallow lupine seeds whole. They're the size of pebbles. In fact, they even look like smooth river pebbles -- even the seeds are pretty ;) Oh, and in some varieties, the seeds are edible.
If you have any plastic bottles (soda, water juice) you can take off cap, cut off the bottom and stick in ground over direct sown seed. Open top lets in rain. If it's too hot/sunny and you don't have time to check every day for germination you can put vents up near open bottle top. Just be careful to remove bottles from over germinated seedlings or they could fry in sun/heat.
Deer chewed up some bottles but can keep seeds safe from diggers and seed eating birds.
thanks everyone.
Johnny's has a list of veggies that can be directly sown and those that are usually transplanted, with some plants being on both lists.
What I hoped to find was a similar list for flowers.
--I have plenty of peat pots/jiffy 7 that I can use for those plants that don't like root disturbance.
I would think there is a list somewhere of flowers that do better with not transplanting.
I realize that it's quite possible to if careful, to successfully transplant even those that say sow in place, do not disturb roots. All my plants are "transplants," but those which don't like root disturbance will be started in peat pots.
I appreciate your comments. I suppose what I'm going to have to do is go through several seed catalogs and note what they say for the growing of each flower. (ugh)
Bob
Have you considered winter sowing? I've found I can start my seeds outside in January or February and they are really ready to go much earlier than if I direct sowed them. I never had much luck with inside sowing, plus I couldn't plant as many seeds.
That's not the root. It's the cotyledons (seed leaf) that haven't split the seed coat yet. I have a Fuyu that I started from seed and it took quite a while to push off it's coat. Someone mentioned misting it in one of the previous posts. That's what I would do. Unless that's a wild persimmon you might be better off with a grafted tree if you are looking for fruit.
Surface sow, or barely cover - some light may be beneficial to germination.
You don't say which allium, but many are warm, cold, cool germinators, needing a moist period at all three temps to break dormancy. Fall sow, or use approx 71ºF for 4 weeks, move to 39ºF for 6 weeks, move to 50ish for germination for those.
That's not true of all, some need no special attention and will germinate at room temperature.
I suggest you go ahead & transplant volunteers BUT consider growing them outside where they can grow/mature in natural environment.