6,340 Garden Web Discussions | Growing from Seed
Everything listed are easy to start from seed, especially using the wintersow method as Martha suggested. I have some of the seeds you have listed and would be willing to send some to you to enable you:-) I have the following if interested:
Agastache foeniculum
Helenium autumnale
Campanula americana
Eupatorium purpureum
Echinacea purpurea
Echinacea tennesseensis
Lobelia cardinalis
I will have when the finish flowering:
Lobelia siphilicata
Eupatorium rugosum
Ratibida pinnata
I will also have if interested:
Penstemon digitalis
Rudbeckia triloba
Eryngium yuccifolium
Liatris (unsure of which one)
Chasmanthium latifolia
Thermopsis carolinia
and a couple other natives I can't think of right now:-) If interested shoot me an email through GW.
Rhonda
Thanks all, I am looking to fill in basically the areas that are on the slopes, that currently grass is growing into as a place holder until I can get the beds set up. See bottom picture, anything shaded is what will have Perennials.
I am starting to collect Milk Jugs now. What is the best time to start, before the first frost or after? I know I'm going to have some deer and rabbit pressure, but I have neighbors with perennials, and I'm hoping "natives" will be a little bit more resistant.
You can see the progress since last November, I've pulled out most of the old shrubs and planted a new lawn, put in sprinklers, and next spring we'll put in perennial beds and a few raised beds as well.
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Thank you SO much morz8! Typically, in the past, I have simply put my Galtonia candicans seeds in a sealed envelope and over wintered in a dry, cool place. Very early spring I sprinkle the seeds in my garden and within 3-4 weeks they begin to produce what looks like âÂÂgrassâ shoots⦠the shoots grow between 4 ��" 6 inches by the end of the summer. Late fall I then dig up the soil and have dozens and dozens of âÂÂminiâ Galtonia bulbs. The next year I plant those âÂÂminiâ bulbs and they mature and the foliage does very well however, they do not flower. The third year, I re-plant the then medium sized bulbs and they flower nicely and the bulbs double in size. My goal is to spend this fall/winter speeding up the first year process by growing the seeds inside so that by late winter I have âÂÂminiâ bulbs. I am trying to shave a year off the three year flowering process by tricking the seeds into becoming ready to grow ASAP through this fall/winter. Are you certain that, after spending a few weeks in the cold fridge, that the seeds wonâÂÂt be âÂÂtrickedâ into thinking itâÂÂs early spring once planted?
Dry in the fridge is only storage. It does nothing to improve germination. If the seeds need a cold period to break dormancy, it must be moist to be helpful. You can sow immediately after harvesting or now, and chances are you will have germination, fresh galtonia seeds are not particularly dependent on a long cold moist period. If you have g. viridiflora, you may increase the percentage of germination if you provide brief moist chill of 2-4 weeks.
Your sign in shows Washington - Washington State? West side? If so, you don't have to lift these every year, they are perfectly hardy in the ground in Western Washington. My own is g. viridiflora, grown from seed, and the clump has been in place, not even divided, for at least a decade.
3 months after seeding!
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Hi mzmalik and welcome to GardenWeb!
Well, when it comes to when and how to fertilize seedlings, you'll probably find considerably disagreement among gardeners. Personally, I do add nutrients to my soil-less mix once the seedlings start developing their true leaves. Of course, I use a very diluted liquid fertilizer. When the seedling get large enough that I feel they should be moved to larger pots, I start using Miracle-Gro potting mix and stop adding my own fertilizer. I have always had good results using this method.
UMassAmherst has a good webpage that discusses the fertilizing of seedling and plugs. You might find it helpful (see link below).
Hope this is helpful,
Art
PS - You can find the links to all forums using the "Forums" link at the top of this page.
Here is a link that might be useful: Fertilizing Seedlings
If the can was rinsed, it may not be a set back. If you'd realized the mistake immediately, watering with a hose, soft nozzle spray (which I would have been doing with a newly seeded lawn anyway) would have been all you could have done to try to remedy. Now, it's wait and see if you'll be reseeding.
But I have to ask, why did you have Roundup in a watering can (and a leaking one at that), it's applied as a spray to foliage, not watered into the ground or poured on - should only be in spraying type container.
Please don't rely on memory to mark your products or applicators. Get a can of spray paint, red for anything used for herbicides or blue for insecticides if you have those and in the future keep them separate. If you are using and mixing concentrates, it doesn't hurt to mark the product container too, some of these companies use same color/size bottles for everything and you can mix something other than you intended. Put a blotch of bright paint on any applicator or product that would be harmful - to you or your plants.
I suggest you plant the seeds and wait to see if they germinate. That is what I plan to do with mine.
I have some CHAYA (Cnidoscolus chayamansa) PLANTS, they have beautiful white flowers. I have many family members and friends with diabetes, Since I have a huge backyard, I decided to grow many plants (about 15).
I mostly grow medicinal plants, this chaya is one of the most promising.
I have some relatives that are healthy and they love making chaya drink. Every time I visit I bring a bag of leaves.
Shagbark seedlings normally produce a long taproot and very little top growth during early development. i.e. 1-year-old seedlings could have root length 1' and a top height of about 3", that root could be 2 - 3' deep at about 3 years from germinating.....which of course can make successful transplanting harder.
Clean the husks from the seed, soak a couple of days, and give them minimum 90-120 moist chill. You can accomplish that by direct sowing, but rodents can be an issue. You can also soak and sow outdoors in deep pots exposed to weather now, use chicken wire or something to protect from squirrels, mice. Sown about 1 1/2" deep and given the long cold period of your Fall and Winter, you should find germination when temps begin to warm in Spring.
Hey guys,
Most of you say that it's better to start the seed in soil,
But I find that many of my seeds on soil rot because of fungus or any other factor I don't understand, maybe bitten by bugs.
It's a dilemma for me.
I also germinate them on paper towel method , the seedlings are okay but "leggy"
I've been using the winter sowing method for more years than I care to count. I've never had damping off and I get great germination rates. It's much less expensive than electric lights and doesn't take up the space inside. I strongly recommend reading the wintersowing FAQ.
Martha
My main thought on this idea is that you have no guarantee of getting raspberry plants with worthwhile fruit if you grow from seed. Not to mention the time you'll need to grow the plants to fruiting size. It is good practice to weed out any seedlings from a raspberry patch for this very reason. If you leave them you run the risk of ending up with a stand of very inferior small, bobbly berries. It is much better to buy a named variety of known quality, even if only a small number of canes to start with. They will soon increase and you can propagate more from them and be sure to have fruit worth eating. Would the people at the farmers' market sell you some canes? Or at least tell you the name of the variety they're selling so you can buy some elsewhere?
I love lantana for a sunburned west side planter that the squirrels play in and break stems and kill more fragile plants.
I was going to try collecting seeds, etc., but after reading your experiences, I will stick to my own method for saving time, energy and a bit of money. Toward spring's end, I bought two approx. 10-12" hanging pots on sale at the greenhouse. They were planted full with a mix of lantana colors that like: yellow, pink, orange, red bi and single colors. I took it home, broke it apart, put some long acting fert. in the soil below the small plants with good roots. They filled my west side 4' planter where nothing does well and are now overflowing. The squirrels are not interested in fighting in a llantana forest, like they seem to in every other plant I have put there and the plants easily tolerate the strong sun. They are beautiful as long as their thirst is quenched every other day. Who could ask for more? The perfect plant for a most troublesome spot.
Very interesting. So the same bag gave you 100% germination and zero germination? I would think it wasn't the mix....seems to be an outside influence. This may sound funny, but did a cat pee in one flat :) ??? Did one flat get the medium that was on top of the bag? Maybe something dropped into the bag....could the bag have received any chemical spray over it?
Thanks, Morz8 - fortunately, it is the work of minutes to poke a hot nail through the bottoms of the containers and whip the lid coverings off. I dunno what was going through my mind - certainly not sense - but, as I often leave plants outside in pots, I usually cover them with a piece of glass until germination (obviously, in a shady north facing spot) and just wondered if the principle could be expanded. I did have a couple of fairly long term bottle gardens (small ferns, hypoestes, etc.) and thought the principle was fairly sound - I was actually more concerned because I had pricked holes in the top thereby failing to maintain a completely sealed environment. However, I am back to my original anxiety - because I have used milkjugs, it is really hard to see exactly how dry or wet the potting mix is (I also have used this mix forever) and feel that a hole just at the top of the jug is not really enough to allow moisture in although I guess I could simply stand the jugs in shallow trays until water uptake occurs. When I have used seed trays, a good soaking is usually all it takes as I keep a clear cover on those too, moving it on or off according to time of year, light levels, water needs etc. and, as you say, the timing is not that crucial as seeds would be exposed to germination potential in their wild state as soon as they drop from the plant - which is never next spring.
One thought, I could simply remove the top part of the jugs, so that I actually have the equivalent of small rectangular pots and shove them all somewhere in the greenhouse.
It is becoming clear that (some)short cuts are simply not worth taking sometimes (especially when the balance of mind is disturbed).
While I can't help you on sowing I do have an idea on moisture levels. Could you not fill one with the normal amount of soil then thoroughly moisten. Now by picking the jug up you could feel how heavy it was and use as a comparison.
SCG