36 seedlings. OH MY!

All but 1 have germinated! I do not know what I was thinking to plant so many of one kind. These must have been premie ones and I thought I would get very few to live. I need a new seedling rack. NOW!! These are from my first pod of red X EP.

I was so shocked, I was checking to see if any has started germinating and going thru containers quickly and picked this one up and the green was pushing p the plastic.

I had planted them in the rockwool on 10/16.

KELL they know better than to die on you, or not germinate, hurry to Wal-Mart and get my planter shelf

I found this interesting today. I peeled seeds, both pods picked this last week. And look at the difference!

WOW! I just the block out of the tupperware to pot up and look what I found on the back.

look at those mini feeder roots off the bigger roots!

OH WOW kell you have your work cut out for you untangling those, they sure are furtile

WTG Kell ... now where you going to plant them??

kell I can make room in one of my mini greenhouses, I could even get another one. :) :)

You're going to have to find a well guarded place to grow out these beauties Kell!

Looking marvelous! I know you have some real beauties in there!!!

Kell you have the magic touch

Kell...when did you plant these seeds? And you did peel them first, right? Did you soak them? Mine never all come up at once...it is more like one a day!
You surely do have the magic touch!!!

LOL!! I can't wait to see your place in a couple of months. They look great.

WOW!!! Unbelievable!!!

Wow Kell....have you lost your mind? LOL Hey Shirley, I bet we have to send someone to dig her out come May or June. Maybe Bambi will surface in time to find her.

You sure have the touch with them. Are you still untangling roots?

Brinda, I have!! LOL.

Yes Margie, I peel all mine unless there is a reason not too like I am breaking the inside seed or if the entire seed is too small. I never soak them. The plastic bags hold in lots of moisture so I think they really do not need to be soaked. I started these on Oct. 16th.

Kareoke, I do not think this size would make it. The fine hairs are so easily hurt.

It took seconds to separate these. I just gently pull the rockwool cubes apart. The roots followed their mother plants out. Not one root broken.

Brugie, these have to stay inside till at least March. I an trouble already! LOL

So Kell, when you plant them in the rockwool, you put them in a plastic bag? Like you do your cuttings?

Kell, are those just snipets of rockwool??? Rather than a whole cube??? I find that even the small cubed rockwool is more than I need, but I've had very good luck with it and I'm beginning to go over the edge, I LOVE seedlings!!!

Sherry , they look like the same ones I use. One sheet has 200 cubes which fits nicely into a regular nursery ( seedling ) tray .

I believe the cubes are 1 x 1 x 1 1/2 " each

This message was edited Nov 4, 2004 10:24 PM

Earthling, yes!! Use a clear plastic bag. Your germination rate will go way up, at least it did for me!

I buy the smallest food leftover plastic containers I can find. I use one for each cross so I can't get them mixed up.

I wash my hands well. I break off the amount of rockwool that will fit in the plastic container, put it in. I fill the container with hot water, drain it when the rockwool is wet thru!

I take a pencil or pen and poke new holes into the rockwool so I have about 2 more per cube or even between cubes. I take my peeled seed and gently press it into the holes length way so they stay fully visible, are even with the top of the rockwool, but not just laying on surface. The seeds like light to germinate! (Thanks Monika)

I then take a clear plastic bag, put some water in it. I drain it so it is just moist inside. I put in the plastic container. I blow into the bag to inflate (it will deflate in a day or 2, that is OK), then twist it and close tight with a velcro strip. I do not open again till I am ready to pot them up.

Then I place them under and very close to 1 warm and 1 cool fluorescent light.

Kell, Have you ever tried using 2 cool lights instead of one of each ? I think I will try it on one shelf and see.

I understand that the cool spectrum is the one that promotes the lush green growth , while the warm stimulates flowering but can cause them to get leggy. I am interested in healthy seedlings not flowers at this stage.

What do you think?

Here is the inside of that bag above. I planted these in the rockwool on 10/23 and you can see practically all are now germinating and breaking out. The biggest holes I have left empty for I do not want the seed to fall down the hole out of the light. I made my own smaller holes.

You are looking thru the plastic bag here.

Sherry, I use the same cubed. I really wish it did not have premade holes in it. They are way too big for many brug seeds. I make new, shallow ones with a pen. I grow 2 to 3 per square.

I just break off the amout that fits into my container. I pick the container size by how many seeds I am going to put into it. I use one container per kind of seed.

LOL. I was intent on taking my pictures between posts that I missed you Scoot! I have no clue. Mine do not get leggy at all. They get nice and fat. I started using what another daver told me to use and it has worked so great I have never even thought about changing them. Try it and let us know if it works better!

I have a ton (well, not QUITE) of seeds to germinate and this thread has been MOST helpful!!! Thank you.

Question: Once you have them sprouted...what size pot do you transfer them to? Are they OK going straight to 1 gal. pots?

Is it "bad" to plant them in a flat of propagation material instead of the rockwool (which I hate)....are they badly damaged if "torn" apart?

TIA Carol

Hi Carol. What do you mean torn apart? The rockwool? You do it gently and slowly and in places where I had 2 or 3 seedlings in one little cube, I had to separate the cube into 3 parts with my fingernails and you just gently pull it apart.

I know that Brugie and Monika plant their seeds directly into sterilized dirt. they get great germination they tell me. And it is much cheaper. I tried it but didn't get as good as I can get with rockwool. It all depends what works for you.

Even in your zone, I do not think you should go directly to a gallon. The highest I go to is a 16 oz cup. Even that is touchy in winter because the temp does not dry out the soil fast and th ebrug is too small to use up the water. I am very slow to water them and keep a close eye. I only go to that size if the seedling is robust with a long tap root. Otherwise I may go to a 4 inch pot or even to one of the larger 6 packs .

Try a few ways to see what works best for you!

Good luck with your seeds.

This message was edited Nov 5, 2004 1:37 AM

Thanks, Scoot and Kell!! I like rockwool because of the quick germination and because, when transplanting, the seedling does not 'fall apart', and seems to have less stress. My rockwool seedlings are very strong, I did not lose a single seedling and some were lost that I planted in soil...I am going to use Kell's plastic sack method when I plant my next batch...

kell, I agree about the rockwool I like to use it also but since the hole is always too larg for the seed, after soaking them good I turn them over and make a new small hole for the seed...

Doris

Looking good Kell, Red x EP should make some pretty babies. I read somewhere that the fresher the seeds, the faster the germination. I'm still undecided on the rockwool. Next seeds I start I'll do half my traditional way and half in rw for comparison. LindaSC

I Love Rockwool!!! I have started over 100 seedlings with it since the middle of August -- its the way to go in my book, too!

They look great Kelley. Congrats with all the new babies and being Brug-mother once again :)

Soil work the best for me as long as it and also the seedcoats are well sterelized for fungus sp. Got 21 B. aurea x EP. I am crossing my fingers, that only the few best seedlings germinate as I would not have any idea, where to put the seedlings next winter. That happened to some of the 2002 crosses. 17 hasn' t bloomed yet. That is much work to put in them and occupation of much space, if they turn out to be look-a-likes.

I am expecting some seeds from a fellow DGer and have found this very helpful! My very first brug cuttings just graduated to gallon sized pots today and I am thrilled! The others I got from a different DGer are doing fine. Some rooting in water and some in soil. The water ones are forming the white nubs and some even have roots already. But the ones in dirt actually have new leaves already so I think I like that method best. But anyway, Miss Kell, what the heck are you going to do when all those seedlings mature into full grown brugs?! Holy cow! Instead of the crazy cat lady with a bunch of cats running around (that will be me btw) Kell will be the crazy brug lady! Ha! Just kidding. But seriously hon, if we need to organize an intervention just holler. LOL! :) Jamie

I am going to be in big trouble Jamie! My husband would love to do an intervention. He does not understand! LOL
Sounds like you are well on your way yourself! RUN!!

Mine too! He said, and I quote "what in the world are all those sticks?" Ha! Now he sort of gets it b/c my two rooted ones are really getting big and I showed him pictures of blooming ones. But right now I also took cuttings from my sun coleus, sweet potatoe vines, wandering jew, and impatiens so those are all in little pots. Then I brought in my houseplants b/c our weather is so freakish this time of year. So needless to say I have stuff EVERYWHERE and it's just going to get worse. Maybe our husbands will get together and do a group intervention. That's why they can never know about Daves. NEVER! :)

LOL!

Kell - you are majorly addicted, lol! And I'm well on my way, dear goodness. I'd hate to see any of those seedlings get tossed! Please try to get them some homes if you can't handle all of them yourself! :-)

kell I have a question, when I first found DG and saw the pictures of the brugs I knew I had to have one :) you know where that leads, well befor I bought my first cutting on ebay I purchased some seeds, this is where the question comes in, now I know what Brug seeds look like that is what the seeds looked like but they just said angel trumpet, and I was told those are Datura, anyway the plants are about 3 and 4" high with very fat trunks, they are three months old and growing very slowly, what are they, Brugs or Datura?

Oh I will not toss them Karrie. They are my babies!

LOL Doris, I would say they are neither! I have no clue what they are. I would send a pic to the sender and ask them. Angel trumpet is the usual name for brugmansia. Devil's Trumpet is the name for datura.

Here is a pic of datura seedlings I had as volunteers this last summer.

oh boy, I was in a hurry kell and didn't see how fuzy that picture was, here is a clear one, the tag says Angel Trumpet, Adenium Red