6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
These are the germination suggestions from Gardens North
(OT - a very good reliable source for fresh and many unusual seeds even though being Canadian, purchasing a phytosanitary certificate for shipping is required)
"This species responds dramatically to GA-3. When treated, germination is in 2-4 weeks at warm. Without GA-3, keep seed warm for 3 months, followed by cold (summer sown, left out over winter accomplishes this simply)."
Your Fall sowing may have been a little late for 90 days warm preceding the chill.
Thanks, George! I guess I should keep them watered then, too? Wish I had started them earlier!
If it helps, they are the waxflower seeds offered by Gurney's
Here is a link that might be useful: 'Purple Belle' waxflowers
And there's the problem with common names. Your photo looks something like cerinthe major, were the seeds similar to large black beads but with edges, corners and not round, smooth?
Cerinthe - sow 1/4" deep, germination 5 - 21 days @ 70F. May be direct sown after danger of frost.
I don't buy seeds or plants either one from vendors who don't supply the botanical name...
I've heard of this happening to brugmansia seedlings, and from what I read about them, some survive and sprout true leaves, while some don't (to be the bearer of bad news, ~70%) I would say start a new batch, but don't toss these just yet, as long as the stems are green, you never know, they may sprout new leaves.
Origami_master: I'm so glad I read your post. I sowed some Brug seeds for the first time, and one germinated a few weeks ago with really pale, sickly-looking cotyledons. They've since died off but there do seem to be seed-leaves growing.
With the advice I got from people here I simply bought a shop light of 4' which had the bulbs for under $8 at Lowes. I put in 2 screw hooks from the floor joists above the basement and put the light on some chain. I connected the light to the chains with S hooks so I could move the lights up and down. I would say the total cost was about $12. I now have 18 healthy tomato plants, Aunt Molly's ground cherries and some pumpkins growing (a project with the granddaughter). I also have been taking all my plants outside for the past 3 weeks as soon as the temps are 45 degrees or better...of course I started slow to harden them off. I have been very lucky that the past week has been low's in 50's and highs in 70's so I have been leaving them outside with protection at night. They are now completely hardened off and doing amazing.
Hi Christie,
Hope you're following digdirt's advice. I couldn't say it better. If you're interested I'll go ahead and take measurements of my seed starting setup. It was rather cheap to make since I just used material that I had laying around. My tomatoes are about 18" and very full now. They're going in the ground this weekend. The peppers are over 8" and are going in a week after. The rest of my veggies are in now. The key is to give them lots of light. I've been leaving my lights on 24 hours and it's still not near as much as sunlight.
Good luck!
Rick
Depending on how big the area is that you've planted you might be able to try cutting the bottoms off some milk jugs and putting them over the seeds. If you leave the jug top off it won't get too hot, but it will be warmer than 62. I've read that pepper seeds (hots and bells) need soil temps of around 80 to germinate! Best of luck!!!
You are doing this for cold stratification or just to keep it cool? Stratification isn't required for rosemary seed but it does prefer darkness, 60 degree temps, and to be lightly covered. Even then the germination rate is very low.
I think you will find all the info in this previous discussion very, very helpful. Good luck with it.
Dave
Here is a link that might be useful: Germinating Rosemary
also read something about if the ends of the tubes are capped in green, that they are ultra low mercury containing lights (which mine are)....is that true for all brand tubes?
No, just the green caps.
If the one you dropped is still working then it didn't break. Actually the tubes are pretty hard to break - even on purpose. The most common problem I run into is the end caps coming loose from the bulb.
Dave
ccaggiano, I can relate to how you feel! I started growing from seed this year. My brother in-law gave me a very nice (read expensive) grow lamp. I thought this was awesome--at first. After about a month and a half the bulb in the grow lamp burnt out, and I could not find a replacement at the local garden center. Oh, my poor seedlings...sitting in the dark for over a day! I had to purchase 4 shop lights from the hardware store to cover the same area that the big grow lamp covered--and I had to reconfigure the whole setup in the process. Then, to top it off, about a week later the outlet that I had my shop lights plugged into blew a fuse and I could not get it to start working again! (We live in a house built in 1826...the outlet needed to be replaced). I had to move all of my plants and re-hang all of the lights AGAIN. Fun times!
MacThayer, I can't believe the story about your neighbor!! How horrible.
with the chillis, just scrape the seeds out and leave them on a paper towel to dry out before storing. for the seeds to be viable they would have needed to ripen on the plant so choose some red ones to try.
My ROS drop their seeds in my beds all the time and every spring I'm pulling up hundreds of seedlings. You could either try germinating the seeds in baggies with a damp coffee filter or just plop the seed into seed starting mix, keep moist and see what happens. Nothing ventured, nothing gained!