Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum

Seedy Subjects! => Grow From Seed => Topic started by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 12:48:27 AM

Title: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 12:48:27 AM
Howdy all.

Although i've been sowing seeds as a hobby for many years,(Lesley thinks i was born in a seed pot),it is only recently that i've started keeping statistical information.

This came about after a visit to a friends garden last year when upon viewing her latest batch of youngsters i was asked how my endeavours were going.My response was that while i had a general feeling ,i had no factual basis on which to make an informed reply.
Later on this got me wondering and although i have a dislike of figures,(whenever i see statistics my first thoughts are 'lies damn lies'--smile),i started a register of all seed sown from April 06.Each entry records the date sown--name of seed--source and if lucky --eventual germination .

A total up this morning confirms 345 pots,(of small bulbs --woodlanders and alpines),have been sown from April 06 to current,however the results relate to the 256 pots sown for the 12 month period April O6 to April 07.

Of the 256 sown --138 have germinated so far--a 54% success rate.I'd expect this to increase over the next few weeks as the weather slowly warms up here.

If i take out a large Trillium batch that i sowed early this year,(they have had only had one chilling period and most won't come up until next season),the figure goes up to 66%.

I should point out that other than the 'doctoring' with the Trilliums above and one *environmental adjustment ,i've tried not to influence the final result.ie when requesting seed my focus was not on whether the sps. would germinate or not ,but rather that the seed was a must have.(Smile).
*This winter i placed a cover over the seed raising area to help control the moisture levels.

Finally a few pics with attached comments to show my setup.

Cheers dave.



Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 12:55:32 AM
Oops --pics now following.....
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 12:58:56 AM
Hang in there folks!!!!!!--for the moment i can't seem to load more than one attachment....
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 01:05:50 AM
more
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 01:18:24 AM
I generally leave these small germinated pots for a season or two .However recently i was given 6 poly. fish containers so i decided to pot a few up.


There is an endless supply of leafmold at more or less our back door which i mix with my standard potting mix of 40 bark-40 peat -20 grit.This shows the leafmold
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 02, 2007, 01:30:15 AM
The final result--A container with various Erythronium sps.You can see there are some that are second and maybe third year growths while the rest are seeds that have  germinated in the last few weeks.If very careful i find i can gently release them from their small pots even at the stage where the seeds are just coming through the gravel topping without any losses.

Cheers dave.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Maggi Young on September 02, 2007, 10:34:00 AM
Super thread, Dave. Of interest to lots of us, I'm sure. I found it strangely moving to see the pot of Thomas' babies thriving in NZ... How I love this Club and this Forum!
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: annew on September 02, 2007, 07:10:51 PM
Very interesting, Dave. Do you add any fertiliser to your compost?
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 02, 2007, 10:20:56 PM
I absolutely refute that I thought Dave was born in a seed pot. It was a raised bed, and a heated one at that. Mrs Toole had more thought for her baby!

Just for the record Anne, I put some slow release ferlilizer in my seed pots, Osmacote Plus, 9 months, high potassium, which is what I use for all potting. I use it on the basis that with literally hundreds of pots of seedlings waiting to be potted up or planted out, some are going to have to wait a good long time and so need something to eat in the meantime. Especially I think something is needed for bulb seedlings which remain in their seed pots for two years.

I had almost nothing germinate in the autumn this year - don't know why - but things have made up for that following harder than usual frosts this winter and more snowfalls than we usually have. In particular, frits are coming up like crazy and even the rather temperamental onco and juno irises are popping up almost daily. A great result. Herbaceous things too are germinating in quantity and I'm delighted that most of the seed which Thomas sent to me in 2005 is bursting forth. Last year, 14 months after sowing, just 5 Gal. nivalis were through and no more came. I was very disappointed as there were so many seeds and it was such beautifully plump and fresh seed. The original 5 are up again with grey leaves but this week there are at least 100 more little green spears though so my dream of a bulb lawn in Thomas' honour, may happen after all. Hundreds of last year's crocus seeds and puschkinias and Eranthis cilicicus and other snowdrops are also coming up at last, along with more hundreds of Anemone blanda. All these from the hugely generous Thomas.

Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: fermi de Sousa on September 03, 2007, 06:44:44 AM
Definitely an excellent idea for a thread, Dave.
I'll try to get some shots of my seedpots to post in the next few days.
It would be interesting to see how others also do their seed-raising.
And as for being born in a raised (heated) bed, I guess it beats a cabbage patch!
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Thomas Huber on September 03, 2007, 08:20:35 AM
Hey Dave - good to see my "babies" growing in your garden!
Strangely not a single seed from this stock has germinated in my garden  ???

Lesley, if you've finished your bulb lawn I will visit you and dedicate it   ;)
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 03, 2007, 11:19:05 AM
Thomas, you'll be most welcome whenever you can get here but so far as the bulb lawn is concerned, it will be a couple of years before I get it planted out. After all, the seeds are just germinating now. A lot of crocuses are up and growing nicely but still very tiny.

I'm suffering from deep frustration at present because somehow, over the last couple of days, my USB cable that fits into my hard drive and camera for uploading pics, has become bent (the camera end) and the darn thing won't work. It still goes in the camera but no software comes up on the screen to start the upload. I'll have to get a new cable I think. In the meantime several pics are waiting to appear, especially a stunning form of Anemone pavonina (or fulgens), the form without the yellow band between the red and the black and which I like much better. I have a nice batch of about 50 coming into flower now, yet they were just tiny seedlings when given to me by a Northland friend, last November so only about one year from germination to flowering!!
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 03, 2007, 11:32:08 AM
Thanks for the feedback peps ,(a.k.a. peoples), as my 20 year old son explained the other day when he informed me to 'get with it'.

Anne--The potting mix which is made up at a nursery has the following fertilizers---Osmocote--Nitro. blue--Dolomite lime--and a few other ingredients --the names of which elude me for the moment.I don't add anything else and presume the leafmold provides some tucker,(food).

I tend to try and grow all my plants hard when following a friends advice a few years ago i gave my drumstick primulas a feed of blood and bone.Fermi above mentions a cabbage patch--that is how i would describe the result!!!!!!--lovely strong flowering stems near enough to the thickness of a persons thumb ,however oversized leaves that swamped and killed most small gems growing close by. Me heavy handed ?? of course not.............

Will post a couple of comments in the next day or two on some interesting observations/facts gleaned from the seed raising exercise.
 
Good night for now--i'm off to my,(raised),bed.

Cheers Dave.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Carlo on September 03, 2007, 01:55:20 PM
Dave,

I expect your 20 year old as talking about "peeps" for people...kind of like "pooter" for these infernal machines.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: fermi de Sousa on September 04, 2007, 03:25:24 AM
Hi Dave
My seed raising efforts aren't as well organised as yours, though I do try to keep records these days (since returning from the USA in 1997, having seen the sort of things the Bartletts in Colorado were doing).
Here are a few pics of the rather cluttered area at the front of the house. Then the little shadehouse and some of the contents.
cheers
fermi
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: t00lie on September 04, 2007, 11:08:56 AM
Thanks for the correction Carlo.I admit i was unsure of the correct spelling and presumed it would be just a shortening of the full word.
As for pooter,(infernal machines), i haven't a clue what that represents !!!!!.I could ask Hamish,(my son),but that would only confirm to him i'm still not 'with it'.

Fermi nice pics.I see a difference straight away.
Nice clean pots you have with no liverwort which is problem here in our shaded woodland conditions and your labels appear informative and easily read.
Mine are just cut down small pieces of plastic venetian blinds that i like to end just below the top edge of the seed pot.

My wife has 6 cats who in the past have delighted in swatting/biting at any labels that protrude above that height.
I have a couple of unlabeled pots with bulbs in them awaiting flowering as a result of their last attack ,(sabotage),a year or two back.Rather exciting in a way ...reminds me of a saying from the movie Forrest Gump--"life is like a box of chocs. you never know what you are going to get".

Anyway enough from me i'm tired and starting to rabbit on ...
 
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Maggi Young on September 04, 2007, 11:14:35 AM
Quote
Nice clean pots you have with no liverwort

Oops! Just as well you can't see our seed pots at the minute.... liverwort central! I will get to them to clean them up soon... I promise!
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Carlo on September 04, 2007, 12:11:09 PM
"Pooter" would be short for computer...oh well....

Interesting to see what others are doing regarding their seedlings. I try to maintain records in a spreadsheet and have done so for the past couple of years. Right now it's primarily historical for me, but at some point it may yeild some interesting information.

Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 04, 2007, 10:18:22 PM
My usual liverwort problem is solved, temporarily anyway. Last year I ran out of the grit I put on top of seed sowings and was so hard up at the time I couldn't get more, but had masses of seed to sow. I remembered a large bag of finely crushed pumice I'd won in an NZAGS raffle, probably at least 10 years ago but had never used, not sure what to use it FOR. I sieved and rinsed it - bit at a time - and dried it on newspaper in the sun, (I do this with grit for seeds anyway, to get rid of the dusty stuff) then used it to top off the seeds. It's so light that at the first sign of any liverwort it can be just touched lightly to remove it. Because the pumice moves around, the liverwort can't get a hold. In any case, it seems to take at least twice as long, or more for liverwort to start, than with grit. The seeds are coming up well and obviously are happy with a pumice topping.

I've taken a few pics but until I get another USB cable when in town, I can't post them.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: fermi de Sousa on September 05, 2007, 02:11:47 AM
Dave,
liverwort isn't so much a problem because of our dry climate; Otto and the others in the Dandenongs have a similar problem to yours (and Maggi's).
My biggest weed in the shadehouse is ....Maleleuca! The tree overhangs part of the Shadehouse and the seed is so fine it drops through the cloth and germinates in the seedpots! Excitement turns to disappointment as the true leaves develop and the weed is revealed!
Most of the new seedpots are kept in the open till they germinate and if they need frost protection THEN I move them to the shadehouse. We're soon (I hope) to set up a larger shadehouse....under Eucalypts! More fun and games then!
chers
fermi
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: mark smyth on September 05, 2007, 06:10:22 PM
My bulb pots have liverwort, two NZ Cardamines and annual grass, Poa annua, that seems to be perennial
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 05, 2007, 10:38:43 PM
Mark, it's a real pain and takes ages but your best bet is simply to hand weed each one, the smaller the weeds the better,especially the NZ cardamines as they are impossible to get the whole plant once the root gets down. I always have a small pair of embroidery scissors and a pair of tweezers in my pocket for emergency weeding, especially of seed pots. You MUST stop the cardamines from flowersing, and the poa as well. Another thing you can do with either bulb or seed pots, is make very sure there's nothing up then give a small spray with Roundup to kill everything that's there. Works on liverwort too though that will still have to be picked off when dead as the rooty, hairy things still cling into the potting mix. I use a squirt bottle, one of those with which I cleaned the shower and bath. The weeds and liverwort die and the seedlings of virtually anything, then can come up through the remains. I have one pot at present where the liverwort totally covered it but now, a whole bunch of crocus seedlings have lifted the liverwort clear of the top of the pot!
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 06, 2007, 12:08:00 AM
Just back inside (to a fire) after a quick look at my seed pots. They're all frozen solid today. Lovely, cloudless sky but very cold and my fingers can barely type, they're so stiff.

In spite of the frost, several more seeds are through and a few of the many bulbs that germinated around now last year, are also through for the second time. There are 2 or 3 every morning and I'm putting them aside for repotting in the summer or just putting the whole potful into a larger pot. I've been doing this for a month and the little ones are growing on nicely.

In July 2005, Gunne-Bert in Sweden sent me some seed of Corydalis solida. Many germinated in August 2006 and these too are coming through well, but to my amazement, in one pot there is a single (white, flushed pink) flower on a tiny plant. There are still a lot of seeds germinating as well, along with more C. popovii (from Franz) and a blue-flowered one from Gote, C. turtschaninovii `Amur', all new up today. Looking at the photos in Ruksans' book of the T one, my mouth is watering already.

Also up is the first (I hope) of my summer sowing of Oxalis laciniata. I spoke to Otto on the phone last night and he said he had one up as well (I only had 2 pods, one for each of us) and then, I thought I didn't but there it is, a tiny hair-like stem with 3 even tinier leaflets. We each got 25 seeds so there should be more soon.

Poor Otto fell recently and has broken or cracked several ribs. I did try not to make him laugh but sometimes he couldn't help it and the laughs were followed by howls of pain. :(
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Maggi Young on September 06, 2007, 10:21:19 AM
Oh, my word, poor Otto! What a disaster, we must send him "rib-healing" wishes... all together now....... :-* :-* :-*
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: David Nicholson on September 06, 2007, 08:33:19 PM
Otto, I know just how you will be feeling. I did the same thing earlier this year and still feel the odd twinge. All the best and look after yourself.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Anthony Darby on September 14, 2007, 07:45:55 PM
I would use leafmould in my compost, but the only half decent natural material near me is beech which is very tannin rich, so much so, that beech forests eventually stop renewing themselves. I don't have room for onecompost bin, far less the two or three needed to produce a supply in the garden. I think a worm composter would be more appropriate for me, but they are very pricey.
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Martin Baxendale on September 22, 2007, 08:32:07 PM
Not exactly seed pots, but it's time to empty out my bags of snowdrop chips from this Spring/Summer and get them potted.

Took the bags out of the cupboard today and most have little bulblets visible, so time to pot before they start to make roots too.

This was a pretty light year. There have been years when I've had well over a hundred bags of chips to deal with. But not many seedlings selected for chipping this year and only a few old varieties chipped (mostly clumps that had gone bad and needed rescuing).

Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Martin Baxendale on September 29, 2007, 12:26:56 AM
Spent all evening potting up snowdrop chips. Here are some pics to show that it can be successful.

The size of the bulbils you get after a few months in the bags of vermiculite can vary quite a lot depending on the size of adult bulb that the snowdrop makes and the vigour of the individual snowdrop.

For example, the first two pics are chips from seedlings involving Gal. 'Mighty Atom' both of which are very strong, large-flowered  plants, reluctant to set seed, so probably triploids with plicatus blood, making large bulbs. The third pic is of some chips from Gal. reginae-olgae, a less vigorous snowdrop with naturally small bulbs, so making smaller bulbils when chipped. But all will make good leaf growth after potting. I just try to pot the smaller bulbils closer packed in smaller pots and the bigger ones a little more spaced in larger pots as they'll develop faster and make larger bulbs more quickly.

 
Title: Re: 12 Month Seed Raising Results
Post by: Lesley Cox on September 29, 2007, 09:54:31 PM
Goodness Martin, I thought it was your birthday when I saw all those little bags. They look like a  birthday cake, complete with drunken candles. :)

There's to be a bulb chipping workshop at the NZAGS Study weekend in January, where the BD will be speaking. I'll try to attend that one. We're allowed two, of four available.
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