Beginner germinating advice?

Greetings to the Morning Glory list!

I am interested in experimenting with growing some morning glory varieties, and so far, I think I've learned just enough to be confused, but not enough to know what I'm doing yet.

I understand that morning glory seeds can be difficult to start, and may require soaking and/or nicking to get going. I have also heard that soaking them in peroxide instead of water might help. I have heard soaking durations from two hours to overnight, and I have heard that both hot and cold soaking temperatures are both good and bad for the germinating seeds. I have heard that it's vitally important to nick or avoid nicking some specific spot on the seeds, and I have heard that it doesn't matter at all. Googling around on the Internet, it's quite easy to find information on preparing morning glory seeds for germination, but considering that many of these instructions are written both for and by people whose primary interest in morning glories is to be able to see the giant pink bunny rabbit, I think it's understandable that I'm a bit reluctant to accept horticultural advice on this subject from just anyone.

So, at the risk of sounding like a total newbie - which I am, really - can someone please tell me, preferably in simple sentences with short words, what I should do in order to coax these odd little seed-things into life?

...and if you happen to be a giant pink bunny rabbit, I probably don't need to know that.

Thanks!

Hi Colderwild,

Germinating Morning Glory seeds are very easy. They are more difficult if you are working with very rare-type MG seeds.

We are working on finalizing a reference for germinating Morning Glory Seeds and hope to have that completed within the next week. This chart will only touch on the 'basics'.

DID YOU HEAR THAT KAREN ....LOL
I will finally have some time next week to get back to the real world and get with you on completing those instructions.

Colderwild, email me and I will send you my germination information that is a word doc. attachment.
And, Karen, if you want to send your version as well - go for it.

edited to say that I mean Karen 'bluespiral'....keep forgetting we have more than one Karen.

Emma
emma.grace@suddenlink.net



This message was edited Feb 22, 2007 4:31 PM

Gee, I feel like a genie just emerging out of the bottle - did someone mention that germination article? I had taken it as far as I could and emailed it to Emma and Ron and was waiting to see what they wanted next. Let me know and I'll hop right on it.

I'll email the last draft I did (#3) to Emma and dmail one to you, too, Colderwild as soon as I send this post. As a newbie, Colder, your feedback would be especially welcome to help us make our germination article even more understandable to anyone no matter what they may or may not already know about the subject.

I apologize for disappearing - have been mired in some other projects. Y'all can always dmail me or in Emma's case, email me.

Hey Bluespiral, Is it possible for me to get a link, copy, or access to the germination article that was created?

I would like to read it too!!

Sure, MGJapan and Ronnie . . .

We can use your input on the final draft as it will HOPEFULLY be a permanent Thread on the MG Forum

Emma

I would be interested in the article. I've never grown MG before. It was news to me that they had to be nicked :). My mom and I picked up a couple packs of seeds of purple MG (Grampa Ott). This is my first foray into MGs...

Hi everyone, I'll dmail the article to y'all and anyone else who asks. The article is keyed to 15 photos by EmmaGrace, and we will post those photos with the article when we get it "stickied" at the top of this forum (if that turns out to be okay).

Colder jogged my brain a bit with his dmail, so I thought I'd post my response to him here, as I think this might also be helpful to keep in mind at the time you sow your seeds:

I have found that the best insurance against unforeseeables that can go wrong is to grow at least one plant of each kind of morning glory you're growing in a pot. I found that out the hard way last summer - planted MG seeds very late on June 20 (unavoidable - illness in the family), and none ripened before frost, so I had to cut the branches with immature pods and put them in water - changing water frequently. The easier alternative would have been to have grown at least one vine of each kind of MG in a pot so that I could have brought the pot into the house for the seeds to continue ripening.

When growing vines in water like that to ripen pods, I found that adding a scant teaspoon of hydrogen peroxide (H202) to each glass of water prevented slime from forming on the vines. Rjuddharrison's diary has a very comprehensive discussion on H202 and germination and progation (among other things) - http://davesgarden.com/journal/d/t/rjuddharrison/1923./

With regard to where you said "it can't hurt to start a few more seeds as per these directions" - heh heh - I say, when in doubt, experiment! (Realistically, if you're down to a very small number of seeds of something very precious to you, ask us first - some of us actually know what we're doing - lol)

Okay!

Thanks to all of the great help and advice that I got from the list, it looks like I've got some seeds started!
I did an initial test batch of eight seeds each of Flying Saucers, Picotee Blue, and Picotee Red.

Of the eight Flying Saucer seeds, it looks like only one failed to "launch", with everything else sprouting healthy-looking roots overnight.
I had slightly less success with the Picotee Blue seeds, with just a couple that didn't go, but they're a bit smaller than the ones that successfully sprouted, so I'm thinking that they may have just been duds.
The Picotee Reds - not so much. Only one root from the whole set of eight, but almost all of the seeds in the pack were small and shrivelly, so I'm wondering if maybe most of those weren't even viable to begin with. All of the seeds appear to have swollen up, taken on water, and are of a slightly "mooshy" consistency like the ones with roots, so I guess that anything that fails to go may be due to their own pre-existing issues.

I guess now it's into the Jiffy Mix and potting soil now, to watch the rest of the magic happen.

I would love the article, too.....ordered many MG and need all the help I can get!!!! They are just the best!!!

Hi Betty - nice ta meetcha & have sent you dmail

Colder, you may have a few surprises, yet - keep us posted.

Surprises, indeed!

Looks like my Picotee Reds may have just been slow starters.
Now seven of the eight have started to sprout roots, with one...er..."enthusiastic" seed. The eighth may or may not be getting ready to go; it looks about the same as it did earlier, but then so did the others just a few hours ago.

Similarly, one of the two "late starter" Picotee Blue seeds has started to grow a root, and the last of that set is just sort of sitting there watching the rest of them go.

The one dud seed in the batch of Flying Saucers still looks like a dud, though, with no difference from earlier today.

Still, other than an earlier experiment with tomatoes, this is my first attempt at growing things from seeds; as with those, I've started a lot, expecting a high rate of failure, and been rewarded with a resounding success. I've got a smaller set of the same three varieties, which I nicked and soaked using a second set of instructions, cobbled together by sort of "averaging" a number of different sources on the web. Virtually all of those have started to sprout, as well.

I've got to learn to stop underestimating Mother Nature's ability to compensate for an inept gardener.

Heh heh - wait'll you learn more - for some of us, the more we learn, the more inept we feel. But, then, that expands more of the experience of gardening into a "leap of faith" which makes the paradox all the more fun.

Colderwild - although many gardeners expect seeds to sprout very quickly...the built-in survival mechanisms of the plants will often produce late sprouting seeds to insure survival of the species should environmental circumstances of any type cause any initial crop to fail...

Some seeds may remain dormant for several months or even many years e.g., Calystegia sepium is known to produce seeds which may remain viably dormant for up to 5 decades...

The plants have been around for many millions of years before we arrived on the scene >so there must be some lasting value to their survival strategies...

TTY,...

Ron

I haven't experienced year, but i never give up on my seeds each year.....planted 40 Echinacea seeds in Janurary and was so disappointed in the success rate. Now the larger ones have several sets of leaves and I just noticed this morning about 5 more babies growing?????

I'm experiencing that "late crop" effect in my other projects, too.

I've got a few pots of tomato sprouts that came from some "spare" seeds and didn't get planted in peat plugs like the rest. I've recently experienced a sudden "second wave" of sprouts that have all started growing at once, underneath the first plants. For the last week or so, I've had to cull them daily from the pots, since I already have far more tomato sprouts than I'll ever be able to use, and the pots are already too crowded as it is.

...and here I planted so many more seeds than I need, because everyone always told me that not everything sprouts as planned.