Second seedling tranplant

When my vinca grew its second set of leaves, I began to transplant them into 3" pots. I was growing them in plug trays, so they couldn't stay and get very large. When I was ready to transplant them, I found that several spaces were occupied by two or three plants. I was unable to pull them apart because of the size of the plants, so I planted them together.

Today, I went back (about two weeks later), and decided to try to seperate the seedlings. I really wanted to have more vinca, and it too late to plant more seeds since it needs to be planted 12 weeks before the last frost. I was surprised to find that I was able to easily seperate the larger plants. I had six sets of plants that I seperated. One was a triplet, the others were twins. Within a few minutes, I was able to double the number of plants that I had!

It would be interesting to find out if you can do this with other small seedlings.

I have a big community tray of columbine that have gotten fairly big that I've been pulling clumbs of seedlings out and pulling them apart with out harming them. I sewed them like that because the seeds were old and I didn't think I'd get many to germinate....WRONG! I think everyone of them germinated...LOL


P

OK, I am now two for two.

I was able to do the same thing with my black eye susans. Instead of sacrificing the extra seedlings, I have been able to pull them apart, and replant them seperately. In the case of the BES, this resulted in about 12 more seedlings. All of them were too small previously to pull apart. Black eye susans have long, thin roots, but I was able to plant them all in seperate pots.

I was able to do this with my tomatoe seedlings too.

My columbines now have healthy seed heads. I have never grown them from seed, these were all purchased from nurseries. How and when do I germinate columbine seeds? After they sprout, when do I plant them? Thanks