2014 Seed Starting, continuing from 2013

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:44 AM

Thanks, Blomma. I always love seeing your seedlings. It must be so exciting for you when your new kids bloom!

The ice cube trick sounds great. I have very limited growing space in the city, only room for a handful of flats, which is why the Deno method is so good for me. Only sprouted seeds go in cells or pots, so no space is wasted. But I'm thinking I could even stick an ice cube in the baggie every so often to mimic the fluctuation of temps.

Meanwhile, I did take my 3 Deno sown seeds out of the freezer after 24 hours. They are now thawed, still int the baggie, and I'll start checking for germination in a couple of days.

Still no luck on the Platys. Now that 2014 is 2 days old and our place is back to normal, I'll get organized and set up for the next batch.

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:45 AM

I think the ice cube method is genius. I'd have to figure out something for drainage for tiny seeds, but it seems like it'd work.

Wow, the Asclepias Tuberosa is sprouting! Only 2 so far, but still, that was quick! The others, not yet.

In 2011 Lupines germinated in Deno in the frig after 40-50 days. I did soak them first that year. According to notes I took from an unknown person's post, after soaking the seeds and freezing the baggie they got sprouts in just a few days. I think I'll try the ice cube trick if they don't show themselves soon. I can just put the cubes on top of the baggie on a dish...

I looked at my records from last year. I had 4 types of Platys, and almost all started sprouting on the 5th day- 1 day soak, 4 days Deno. This year's first try looks squishy, I'm sure they're no good, so I tossed them. Now I'm soaking a new batch. This time I'll leave it at 24 hours, not 48, and start using peroxide and SuperThrive when I dampen the Deno baggie. I'm afraid, though, that the seeds didn't have time to mature. But I'll keep trying, just in case.

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:46 AM

I like peroxide for soaking, but what fungicide do you use? I've tried cinnamon and chamomile tea, and it was not so fabulous.

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:47 AM

Thanks!

Freezing seeds that need stratifying for 24 hours after soaking really worked. I had Asclepias sprouts in 2 days after I took them out, Lupines in 3. Yesterday I planted 9 Asclepias and 3 Lupines in 6-packs. I used MG Seed Starting mix for the base, then WWKathy's trick of covering the seeds with Vermiculite. The Campanula seeds haven't sprouted yet, but I decided to get them in cells anyway because they are so are so tiny and may be even harder to handle once they start to grow. I clustered them on top of the vermiculite. Everything is now under a dome.

I now have Campanula Blue Clips and Delphiniums in the freezer, and Prunella and Dianthus at room temp, all after soaking 24hours and in Deno. Aquilegia Maggie Mae and Platy Astra Blue are soaking.

I'm thinking the ice cube trick should be good for the Aquilegia, and maybe the Campanulas, since they both can be tricky. Last year what I thought was Campanula White Clips seed, and very easy, turned out to be white Platycodon, which I found out when they eventually bloomed in late summer. So I'm back to square one on those, no personal experience. Oh well...

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:47 AM

The seeds I put in the freezer are in moist paper towels in a baggie, Deno method, never dry.

In the past, Platys have done well for me with just a soak. This particular batch of seeds was on a broken stem, and may not have developed properly before harvesting. Sadly, it was the only blooming stem, so if they don't grow, that's it. I have to hope that the plant survives the winter and blooms its head off next year:-)

Aquilegia self sows for me in the garden, too, but I've never had any luck getting them going inside. One batch out of 4 commercially packaged varieties germinated after being sown outdoors in the fall, but that's it. The seeds I have now didn't do anything for me last year, but I know WWKathy got them going. I'm so excited about the speedy Lupines and beginner's luck with the Asclepias after the soak and freeze, I'm hoping that will work. If nothing happens, then I'll try ice cubes.

Your A Chrysanthea are lovely!

I'm Blomma's customer who started adding ice to the iris soaking water. In addition to changing the water twice a day for 3 weeks and adding ice to the water, I am going to try soaking and icing for an extra week. All the seeds that sprouted tiny roots did
so at the end of the 3 weeks. This batch is now at 23 days and this morning I had 4 more sprout.
So far I have 25 planted. It takes 10 days to 2 weeks for the little seedlings to pop up. However that is 25 out of 225 seeds. Yes, I actually counted them. I'll let you know what happens to the rest at the end of the 4 weeks.

1. & 2. sprouted seeds
3. & 4. iris seedlings one week old

oh Blomma Those are so pretty if you get more seeds this yr could i try some please ?
SEEMS GOOD TO SEE blooms & Not snow .

murkov2,
Hi and so glad you stopped in and explained in your own words. Thanks for the photos. The seedlings are so cute. I still find it hard to believe their early birthing.

You may want to check out other forum regarding sowing seeds, including Winter Sowing. I have spread your method all over Daves---where appropriate---so you may want to copy and paste in the other forums what you wrote above.

Seeing is believing

Hi,

Thanks for spreading the word, I'll check the other forums. Hope others will try and experiment further so we
can all continue to find ways to trick mother nature and speed things up. I am so excited with the results. I originally tried the ice in an attempt to combine the soaking with the 3 months of cold storage and to lop off 3 weeks of the cold storage. Never expected to avoid the cold storage entirely.

2 more sprouted today. Unfortunately one didn't become a seedling after 3 weeks so I dug it up and found a smelly rotted mess. Yuck! I wonder why that happened.

Hi,
Yuck! Probably not good to begin with for some reason. I have the same with daylilies from the same pod. Sometimes one won't sprout and becomes soft, yet the others in the same Deno package will do fine. So who knows.

I want to thank you for experimenting. I really appreciate it. It will benefit everyone that wants to sow iris seeds. I now include the information in the article I send out.

If we can speed up the germination, perhaps more gardeners will become interested and hybridize to grow their own to register. The world of irises will all benefit.

Check your D-mail in a few minutes.

I have 2 Lupines poking up their little heads, and the very beginning of an Asclepias showing. It is so cool to speed up the germination of these fussy slow pokes, isn't it?! Last time I tried I didn't see Lupine radicals for 40 days in Deno in the frig, and still lost a lot after planting . This is barely a week! Amazing!

Pam...just a word of warning on the Asclepias (by the way which one is it?), mine (A. incarnata white) always come up, grow for a bit and eventually die. But if you look closely the plant is not dead!!!! It seems like the main stem dies back to the ground (potting soil line) and if you keep watering them they will eventually reemerge to grow another stem.... This has happened every time I've ever grown them.(5 or 6 times). I am hoping those that got planted this fall make it thru the winter as I'ld love to have it blooming in the garden again this season... (also just started them on top of the soil, no cold ever used). Same with Aquilegias, think I tried the fridge once and some out at the same time. Found out germination was just as good out so quite putting them in the fridge...

Love the A. chrysanthas, my favs tho are the newer ones that are fragrant. Most are now listed as A. c. Denver's Gold. Got slews of Columbine that should bloom this spring if they make it thru the winter. Was in the garden the other day after what snow was there had melted. I noticed many little babies were starting to pop out of the ground....so I went thru and stepped on a bunch of they trying to push them back in and make good contact with the soil. Then we had some more snow and our second round of subzero weather. Fingers are crossed. Will check on things again after this round melts and readjust if any need it.. Since my planting was done late in the season am thinking it might be the reason they are surfacing a bit....

Pix 1,2,3 and 5 are newly planted areas mostly with babies, pix 4 (next to the white fence and close to the house) is my holding bed for those I didn't have time to seperate into individual pots. So I'll have plenty to do this spring as they all need seperating and put into a regualr home somewhere in the garden.....

Most every area behind the grey hose is now planted...(the hose is marking my new path thru the area... and the green hose in pix 4 is in the middle of the path, the posts are acutually marking the path... I know is a bit hard to tell..lol....atleast I know where the paths are, sure wish the deer did also!!! When things get going this spring will finish paths and plantings.. alot of the area this side of the grey hose will get rerototilled come spring to kill off any grasses that might have made thru all the torture they endured.....lol, rototilling, roundup and rototilling... And then I will plant the rest and fill in where anything died off from winter, tho most should make it if the subzeros didn't get them.

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:52 AM

Wow, Kathy, big, big plans! I remember your pics from last year... It looks so different now, doesn't it? But I know with the first breath of spring you'll have color bursting out all over :-)

My Asclepias is tuberosa, just the plain orange one. I had one purchased plant that over wintered last year, survived a couple of moves, bloomed, then disappeared. Do I dare hope to see it again? Anyway, just loved the vibrant color with all the daylilies and tall grasses at the end of a long stretch of lawn, and decided to have a lot more. So far several have germinated, and 2 of them now show tiny green above the vermiculite.

Nothing new to report, but tomorrow's another day...

This message was edited Mar 9, 2015 10:54 AM

So pretty- I found a tall white Asclepias last summer at a local nursery. It was the only one they had, and the tag was missing, so I'm not sure of the variety. It was from a small local grower, they said. Does A. Incarnata come in white?

No new Asclepias and Lupines sprouts, only about 50% germination so far, but I tried another trick with the remaining seeds: back in the freezer for another 24 hours. Meanwhile, 2 Lupines out of 3 are just beginning to unfurl, and 3 planted Asclepias cells have sprouted so far, one with 2 stems. Not sure if it's 1 seed or 2. I thought I only put 1 per cell, but stranger things have happened...

When I took the pics below, I noticed 2 more little Asclepias just beginning to surface :-)

Great job Girls, good tricks! Kathy about your experience with Asclepias growing a bit and dying...sounds like damping off. Try a thin layer of grit on the seedling trays before germination and see if that doesn't take care of it.

Leave it to Blomma to include some glorious pics for motivation, lol.

Pam, I'm excited for ya...

I have a white Asclepias, it's Ice Ballet, I'm pretty sure I got the seed from Park's years ago. It lived through three winters in a pot before we bought our house, transfer to a flower bed, tromping by roofers, tromping by city workers doing sewer work, and it still grows and blooms.

Mippi...nope..not damping off, that would more than likely kill them. I just figured it was a quirk of the plant. They seem to die back to 1/8-1/4", after I clip off the dead stem I get resprouting within a week (ish).

Pam...I can ship some seed to you, also have me check my babies that got planted last fall come spring. I can ship a few in your box that will be coming your way. (thinking I planted about 20 of them.) Asclepias incarnata 'Ice Ballet'.

Celene..Lucky you... The last batch that I planted lasted about 3-4 years and then died off... Just thought it was one of those perens that's not long lived.

Pix above: A. i. Ice Ballet (not fragrant). Under lights. Seeded 12/29. Sprouted 1/7. Potted on 2/1. Pix above was in March, shortly after leaves began dropping and stem die back. Clipped off to green (1/16-1/8" above soil line. New side sprout within a few weeks. Should bloom come summer if they made it thru the winter. I'll be starting the A. incarnata Pink this week (the pink is suppose to be fragrant tho not sure if it's the same as regular pink swamp milkweed tuberosa). Tuberosa has white milky sap and incarnata doesn't.

Got a package from Susie today, Thankyou!!!!!!! I'll send plants your direction this spring. And I want to see more pix from you.. I think your garden area is bigger than mine. LOL. Come on let's see it... MOre, more, more.

Sorry Kathy all my gardens are under 1 1/2 ft of snow Plus the other 3 ft of snow the snowplow guy put on top of them I;m sure all my markers will be PUSHED To the back of the front garden the way he plowed in there . the other day :(

your welcome to the seeds .

Whooppee! Today I have the first few tiny shoots of Campanula pyramidalis, the tall blue one, and the first Dianthus Siberian Blue! Also Asclepis is up to 7 now, and I can see that the first stem divides into 2 very low down on all of them. So it really was 1 seed to a cell.

Still only 2 Lupines growing out of 3 that sprouted. Maybe one got damaged when I planted it :-(. But that's OK, I have lots of Lupines, really don't need so many of this beautiful pink one. The one I had died out this summer.

I took the remaining Lupine and Asclepias seeds in their Deno packets out of the freezer this morning after their second 24 hour freeze. I'm curious to see if that makes a difference, if the last few seeds will sprout.

My NOID white Asclepias is about 4' tall, looks like the typical swamp one but white. Is that incarnata do you think? I'll have to post pics this year, always assuming it comes back.

As for seeds, I think I'm full up for big plants, won't have room to start them once everything else gets going. I still have tons of perennial seeds that I haven't started yet.

What happened to, "I'm not going to do as much this year?!"

Lolol!

If we could all have 5 acres to play with for our seeds. I love the experimenting with getting them come forth almost as much as watching them mature and bring new seeds to me.

Oh wait I do have 5 acres except it is in KY and I'm in FL, now that just isn't right....LOL

Jan

I would have been happy to have been in Fla this past week- We had single digits --brrrrr!!! But it's better today. Wet, but warmer :-).

Soooo... Campanula pyramidalis is up strong, I'm delighted. And I'm up to 9 growing Asclepias. But the leftover seeds are doing nothing, and one of my 2 lonely Lupines is not looking happy... The cotyledons aren't opening. The stem looks strong, but the leaves are hanging down, and the connecting stem is drying up. Maybe it got damaged somehow at a particularly delicate stage. Also, in my experience, occasional Lupine seedlings are prone to suddenly failing for no apparent reason. Spring is too far off, It's much too early to put all my eggs in one basket, so I'm soaking a new batch of seeds.

Also soaking Campanula White Clips and some pink Platy Perlmutterschale. Last year I gave a bunch of the pinks away, then realized I would have liked more. Then I got so excited about the double sport and thought I'd have lots of them... But that might not happen, so I'm covering myself with the regular pink . If they don't germinate I'll have to look at my method again, lol!

Slowly but surely I'm moving into production mode. I got all the shelves up and a couple more lights. There are a few babies out of the dome, roughing it on a regular tray. I have heat mats in place, but the temps seem to be OK for the time being without them.

Happy growing, everyone!

I'm cleaning and sanitizing my trays and plant stands. Going to start planting soon, tropicals and other plants that need more time to be planted out in Ohio.

Pam...grow extra of the C. pyramidalis (Chimmeny Bells), would love to have the blue also... mine is white and didn't get seed last fall. Sorry..we got frost before they were developed seed pods..darn.. (Please.....lol.) Just thought of something for your wild garden...do you have any of Adenophora lilifolia, can ship some if you like come spring. (Is a Campanula relative, 30-36" June-July, blue/purple hanging bells)

I have a lot of Campanula, but not that one. Should I give it a try?

I'll be glad to give you some seedlings of the Campanula p, also have extra seeds. It's quick to germinate especially after a 24 hour soak. The seeds are so tiny, I put a paper towel over the cup and turned the water, seeds upside down into it. Then I used a spray bottle to wash the seeds into the cells on top of vermiculite over soil mix-- your trick. They came up in just a few days.

Adenophora is naturalized in my garden, I just love it.

I'd be happy to trade some seed with you, I have a ton of stuff.

Celene, come spring I'll ship some from the garden for postage. (or maybe a trade..lol)... would be quicker than seeding..

(I'ld be interested in Aristolochia elegans, Lavender Moonvine and or Centranthus ruber White. Prefer plants if you can.....but... lol.) Let me know, and I have other things tooooo. Kathy

This message was edited Jan 12, 2014 8:35 AM