delphinium

Any one can spare some Delphinium seeds?.I try sowing them many times but did not have any luck I will welcome any colors

Cytf,
Did anyone respond to your request? I can certainly put some
in the mail to you & they would get there quickly as I'm next door in NJ.

Let me know.

Thank you Cris 316 , I will appreciate them.No one has responded to me but you, will send you a D Mail

I have a terrible record for sending things fast, but I have lots of pacific Giant Delphinium seeds and you're welcome to them.

All came from one plant, self-pollinated. Pale blue blooms w' pale lavender edges.

D-mail me your address if interested. I can give you lots of seed, in case slugs or mice eat your seedlings.

'Pacific Giant' mix
Delphinium elatum
OP heirloom
Perennial
short-lived P Zone 2
4+ years Zone 7 and warmer
5'-7' needs stakes

from Botanical Interests

when flower stalks emerge, cut all but 2-3 strongest
heat causes dormancy
stratify 2 weeks , sow ¼" deep. Needs dark, and a peaty mix.
germination tmep: I see 50-55º F or 71-75º recommended.
emerge 14-28 days
slow & irregular germination
thin to 12"-36" when 3" tall

I have a heavy self-seeding Delph.... a pretty deep blue-ish purple. the foliage is 'ferny' and they are short-ish... maybe 18"

think I have an image on FB....

hope this link works....

https://scontent-a-ord.xx.fbcdn.net/hphotos-frc3/p480x480/1380735_10202197068715213_379040677_n.jpg

I just took this last week. still blooming in Oct.
this bunch has fallen over, but I have more that are standing nice and tall.

lemme know if you want any.

Thank you tcs1366, I already got some,

Hi Cris316 and Rick Corey I winter sowed the delphinium seeds that I received from both of you and they germinated.I planted them in my front yard garden bed that receives morning sun and they look quite healthy.Hoping that they will give me lovely flowers .

Grrreat!

My parent plant didn't come back this year. I'd love to know how true the colors come back for you.

They must already have outgrown your slug threat. Did you see many "machine-gun holes"?

Hi RickCorey _WA, the plants are still small not in flowering stage yet.I will keep you posted.

Hi Rick , your are right the slugs are attacking them . I am trying to remember to spray dish washing soap solution on then in the evening. What is your advice?

Getting the trays or plants up off the ground won't help much. They will climb a staircase to get to an open can of beer.

Slug bait works fastest and is the most effective. The chemical kind ("metaldehyde", I think) kills them right away, but if a small dog eats a large pile of the bait, he will get sick.

If you scatter a sparse ring around your plants, slugs will be attracted to the bait. The metaldehyde kills them before they can eat your plants. Then other slugs eat the dead ones (they are cannibals.) When the bait is scattered thinly, even a dumb pet can't eat enough of it to get sick. Also, I think that this kind of bait has a very bitter chemical added so that nothing but a slug WILL eat it.

The natural "iron phosphate" slug bait like Sluggo seems to work eventually, at least it reduced my numbers somewhat. And it is very safe. But my experience was that I could lose an entire tray of 1-2-leaf seedlings overnight to just a few slugs.

For long-term slug control, there are MANY suggestions. But that usually means that no one solution is good enough to have become the only answer.

1.
Beer saucers attract them, and then they drown. You have to empty out the saucers and replace the beer every few days. Cheap beer seems best (someone did a study!) or you can make yeasty soup:

slug-beer: by mittsy http://davesgarden.com/community/forums/t/1260123/
2 cups warm water,
1 pkg. dry yeast,
1 teaspoon sugar,
1 teaspoon salt ,

2.
You can hunt for them around dusk and dawn, in damp areas. They mostly come out at night or during a drizzle. Stomp them or mash with a shovel. Spraying with diluted ammonia kills them, and if you find their nesting site, it seems to dissolve their eggs.

3.
If you lay down something like plywood or a cardboard carton to give them a shady, moist cool spot, they will gravitate to it during the daytime. That's when you flip it over and stomp them.

Or spray them with household ammonia diluted with 9 parts water to one part ammonia. That kills them quickly.

Some say you can use a stronger 1:5 dilution as long as you spray water on plants' leaves afterwards, if you sprayed the plants. Personally, if I sprayed even 1:9 ammonia on seedlings, I would mist them promptly and never find out whether ammonia can hurt seedlings!

Household ammonia starts out around 5% to 10% ammonia. These dilutions result in around 0.5% to 2% total ammonia in your spray bottle. And ammonia is a fertilizer, so it's good for the soil unless you shoot WAY to much in one place. Then you would have to water to dilute it.

Some say that coffee or coffee grounds repel slugs. I don't know, but the soil and plants are bound to benefit from the grounds.

Many say that slugs don't like crawling over diatomaceous earth (DE), or sharp gravel, or crushed egg shells.

I forget whether it was geese or ducks that enjoy snapping up every slug they see.

After you kill all the slugs in your yard, they will migrate from other yards to fill the vacuum. Beer, yeasty soup and bait all attract them.

Hi RickCorey ,so these slugs always attack Delphiniums ? That's a big task to track down these slugs . If I do not do all this work of killing slugs I will not have any plants ? Sometime ago I had bought something for slugs to use around my cabbage plants I think I will try that or try the ammonia solution because I have a bottle in my garage . Oh I am working really hard to get some delphiniums.

I just know that in my yard, slugs ate them as fast as I could put trays of seedlings outdoors. Even up on a porch well separated from the garden itself, small seedlings disappeared overnight.

What eventually worked for me was to grow the seedlings to a larger size before putting them out. I think I potted some seedlings up to 4" pots or bigger, all indoors and hence under my lights.

Then I spread slug bait in two wide circles around the trays, using the metaldhyde kind of bait so they would eat the iron phosphate, then my delphinium seedlings, and then crawl away to die.

Of course, I also kept a few beer saucers out near each bed, and stomped any that I saw.

When I put the larger seedlings outside , they acquired some "machine gun holes" , but there were survivors. Once 12-16" tall, I saw no more slug damage.

Another approach is to wait for another year. I had two very bad slug years in a row, then a moderately bad year, and since then not as much toruble with them.

Cytf,

Have you tried using the 'plank' approach to your slug problem? You lay a board or plank on the ground near the plants and then go out in the AM and check it. The slugs feed at night but seek shaded cool places to hang out during the day, so they will congregate under the board. You just push them off into a bucket of sudsy water. After a few days the numbers decrease dramatically and there's no danger to pets or handling of chemicals.

Just a suggestion.

J

Thanks for the advice JenDion.