Hello everyone...I've been away from my gardening duties for far too long due to school but finally that is all over with!!! Now, I can focus on gardening again. But first, a moment of silence for my tomato and pepper plants which are no longer with us because I forgot to move them indoors when it snowed earlier this month...
Anyway, my thoughts have centered on buying some shelves and attaching fluorescent lights so that I can start my own plants from seeds. I received a seed catalog and I have my eye on (amongst other things) some butterfly bush seeds (buddleia, davidii mix) and I was wondering if I could start these indoors during the winter. Anyone had any success doing this? How soon could I get started?
Butterfly bush from seed?
These are best winter sown - go to the DG winter sowing forum for hints and how-to's.
Thanks, will do.
If anyone else has any advice I'm all ears...
KayJones...wow...thanks again for directing me to the winter sowing forum. Honestly, I thought that "winter sowing" meant (exclusively) direct-sowing seeds. I never considered recycling soda bottles or milk jugs in order to start seeds out in the open. Anyway, I was dead-set on buying fluorescent lights and starting all my seeds indoors. I might still do this, just to compare the two methods if for no other reason. But, my attention has definately shifted away from indoor lights to the WS methods. My family goes through milk like its nobody's business, so my supply of mini-greenhouses should be ample.
Great!!!
Wintersowing is great and I love love love it for all kinds of seed starting.
But if you want to start the seed indoors in the traditional way, buddliea davidii germinates at 68 degrees and takes about 2 weeks for sprouts if surface sown and kept moist.
Another way: I've found that you can easily fast start buddliea germination by using the 'baggy method' (which is much discussed on DG and you can find out more with a search).
Buddliea is fairly easy to get started and in fact it's classified as a noxious weed in some states, so you may want to research how to use it best in your region.
Thanks for the info, tabasco. I am just getting into wintersowing and have already learned much from the WS forum. In fact, I WS'd a bunch of lettuce on Christmas eve, and about 12 swiss chard seeds just a few minutes ago. So much to do...
Anyway, I am waiting for my seeds to arrive (including the butterfly bush seeds) so in the meantime I will continue researching the methods you mentioned.