Passiflora seeds

I just got my seed order today. One of the things I ordered is a package of Passiflora seeds. It says to plant them immediately. I assume that's because they don't keep very well. In doing some research I discovered that you need to have a temperature of at least 20 C to get them to germinate. There's no way that the house stays that warm and I don't have a heat mat. Has anyone else grown these seeds? Do you really need to keep them at that temperature? I'm thinking about trying to put them on the gas stove overnight. The pilot light stays on so the stove stays warm.

That should be perfect. I really mourn the loss of my gas stove when selling the farm. My stove had a temp of around 75 - 85F which was absolutely perfect for a) merangues (spelling) overnight and b) germinating all my seeds.

When in Prince George went to buy another and the new ones now do not have a pilot light so ended up with 2nd hand electric one.

Now I use heating pads from London Drugs.

Inanada aka Ginny

I am using a heating pad too, Ginny. It works fine on a low setting.

Try a heat grill from way back when???????? cover the surface with tin foil...it works...I've tried it! E......good luck

some people have suggested soaking the passiflora seeds in oj for 24 hours first
i only had one germinate from my package last year out of 8 seeds and of course it's the most common one
think i will stick to cuttings until i get better at coaxing difficult seeds

good luck

It sounds like they might be even more difficult to grow than I imagined. Ginny, I think you're talking about the old gas kitchen stoves aren't you? I had one of those one year when I was going to university in Victoria. It was great for making yogurt. I just had to put the jar over the pilot light for the night and in the morning I had yogurt. The gas stove in this case is the natural gas stove in the living room. When I felt it this morning it wasn't very warm so I'm not sure that it will work. I'm going to try an old 10 gal. aquarium. I'll get a couple of the grow light bulbs to put in the lid and see how that works. I'm not sure if it will stay warm enough overnight when the lights are out though. I was thinking about using my heating pad on low but after falling asleep on it and getting a bad burn, even though it was on low and covered, I'm a bit nervous about that.

Sandi,

I've grown lots of passifloras from seed. Definitely soak in orange juice for 25 hours. It will stimulate germination. Passiflora seeds do best when they are really fresh.

Thanks for the tip about the orange juice Jeanne and jagonjune. I will definitely do that. I was unable to get grow lights to fit the aquarium lid but did get a bulb for keeping reptiles warm overnight so that should keep the seeds warm overnight as well. I have a small grow light bar that I will rig up to fit over the aquarium for the day time.

The reptile light worked great last night. The aquarium stayed above 20 C. Just thought I'd mention that in case anyone else has seeds they need to keep warmer than room temperature.

Good tip, Sandy. Thanks!