Tropicals & Tender Perennials: The Ho-Hum dreary days of winter, 1 by hcmcdole

hcmcdole wrote:
Lali,

Nice looking Midnight Sun. My previous two looked good at times and then bottoms up. I may go terrarium on this one.

Seventeen is getting down there. We had teens back before Thanksgiving which is kind of rare. We are cold a few days, warm a few days, etc. Let's move to the tropics!

Jackie,

I don't have tons of seed anymore. I might have a few packs that are several months old. Last May I took all the seed I could find and scattered it in my garden. If it came up - fine, if it didn't then at least I got rid of it. My mother gathered a lot of red hot poker seeds off of her plants and I threw them out there as well. Now I have a few hundred red hot pokers about six inches high.

I no longer sow seeds indoors either - too much trouble transplanting and watering. I will try some tiny seed indoors soon though but don't want what I used to do which was dozens and dozens of seed trays. I sowed some gloxinia seed I harvested off one of my (now deceased) plants and had hundreds of seedlings, but dropped the whole pot which did most of that batch in. The glox seed I ordered from T&M with visions of sugar plums in my head never materialized - I chalked it up to old seed. Same for begonias. The best luck I had with begonias was a rex mix from Parks years ago.

The last seed I grew in pots was castor bean and datura ordered off ebay this past year. I sowed two seeds each of the castor beans (3 different types) and got them all up. I moved those indoors since I sowed them so late and 2 out of 3 have set seed which looks viable. I am waiting on the third one to mature so I can harvest that seed as well. The datura is just sitting there waiting for warmer days.

Anyway I've learned to not jump the gun on seed sowing. I used to sow it very early and then have a leggy mess by the time the weather warmed up.


Here is mini-perba back in September.