Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Seedy Subjects! => Grow From Seed => Topic started by: Catwheazle on January 01, 2017, 11:37:20 AM
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I have here some quite, completely, whole beginner question (please do not laugh!).
The seeds about the lists and the exchange come always in December / January.
If you sow directly outside .. do you do that, with the types the stratifikaktion need now or in March / April?
The warm germinating also only in April?
Are the seeds stuck in frost broken or better storage dry in the refrigerator?
I know this probably depends on the species ....
thanks
Bernd
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I think the I think the Fritillaria have to wait until September in a paper bag. Not in the refrigerator but at room temperature. For Narcissus, Crocus, Colchicum, Cyclamen, Erythronium, Trillium, ... one can sow after rehydrating the seeds one night. Maybe I'm wrong. There are other people here who have more experience than I am. In any case, there are never ridiculous questions. It is better to ask the question than to regret it too late.
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The other year, I sowed my Fritillaria seeds in between layers of moist paper towel, and placed it in a zip lock bag in the refrigerator for about two to three months. The embryonic plants developed enough for me to transfer the seeds to soil in spring and they germinated the first year (Fritillaria bucharica and Fritillaria stenanthera).
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I see my seeds (exclusively pure botanical alpine) always in the cold box between Christmas and New Year. Pots sunk in the sand. As soon as snow is present, I cover everything with it. So I simulate in the spring the natural snowmelt after and have so far very good experiences.
However, I have only experiences with plants from the high mountains. May be different in other species.
A chemical pretreatment is not done with me. Leave everything to nature.
... As always ... sorry for my english.
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Thank you, that helped me a lot
Bernd
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Because I am in the southern hemisphere, the SRGC and much other seed arrives in my mail box in mid summer. I always work on the principle that the fresher the seed is, the better it will germinate. So I sow my SRGC seed within days of its arriving and I am already sowing seed harvested from my garden in recent weeks and days. So today I have sown some iris seeds, some cyclamen, some narcissus some fritillaria, (just harvested yesterday) and various other things, some bulbous and some herbaceous. In August (February to you) I sowed seed of some alpines given to me while I was in Prague in September. I have already potted up a few of these things and today I see that shortias are germinating, in mid summer, also from my generous Czech donor.
Maybe each species has an optimum time for sowing but I still think and always will, that fresh is best. Even if you don't expect germination until spring, I think summer, autumn, winter sowing is best if that's when it is most fresh. The seed will sit calmly in the pot and come to life and germinate when it is ready and it likes the prevailing conditions.
As a footnote, just today I found a seedling of a rare androsace, the seed of which I was able to buy at Tabor in 2013. The seed was sown in June (mid winter here) as soon as I arrived home and so it has taken three and a half years to give me just one tiny plant. From the size of the plant I suspect it germinated in our spring, say August or September so it has taken up to three years to germinate. In the meantime, because I had given up looking each day, it had become overgrown by weeds and it was only because I was throwing out old seed pots that I found it at all.
So don't stress about the best time to sow this or that. Just sow it when you get it and wait patiently until nature takes its course. (I never put seed puts under cover. They are put outside to cope with whatever the weather provides. I do water the pots if they become dryish though.)
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I sow plants from temperate climates as soon as I get the seeds from the exchange, self collected seeds from my garden I usually sow shortly after being harvested. In nature, seeds fall on the ground and endure the weather until spring, so I try to replicate that as best as possible. My guide is to look what weather conditions are in the natural habitat of the plant. Some seeds however need a very long cold stratification or first a warm (fall temperatures) followed by a cold (winter temps) stratification. Such seeds will not germinate if sown in January because they missed something of their stratification during their dormancy, however they are likely to germinate the next year after having been exposed to a full natural temperature cycle. Seeds that do not need cold stratification I prefer to sow when any possibility of long or deep frost is over - so begin of April in the unheated greenhouse, but in the greenhouse they will have day/night temperature swings which I think is also a trigger to germinate some seeds, and anyway the best possible replication of natural conditions. Some seeds have a very hard seedcoat, like Prunus Spinosa or Mespilus Germanica and need 2 winters before the seedcoat is weakened enough to allow them to germinate. A sowing of Prunus Spinosa gave me after 2 winters almost 100% germination. And I am waiting for another pot of these to germinate this spring (sown in December 2015).
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Lesley & François
... Thank you for the very good description of your sowing procedures.
I also have some candidates who hopefully will be worth the wait. For example the beautiful Notothlaspi rosulatum and various Celmisia and Aciphylla are now the second year in the pot. I can wait. ;D I always read about plants that have germinated only after many years. Maybe I'm lucky.
Today it snowed with us and I have my sowing from 23.12.16. Covered with snow.
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Wow super :-) Thank you for the detailed information.
They are very helpful to me. Thank you !
Bernd
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I agree with Lesley about leaving pots of seeds outside until germination. i would add, though, that I cover the pots - or more conveniently- a whole trayful of pots with horticultural fleece, securely tied round the sides of the tray to keep it in place. This has several advantages: it keeps out hungry mice, voles, blackbirds; it also keeps unwanted weed seeds, dead leaves, liverwort spores, etc from landing in the pots; and it keeps the atmosphere in the pot nice and moist. The two disadvantages are that small slugs can enjoy snacking on my seedlings before I have noticed them and also it's a nuisance untying the fleece every time I want to check the seeds. I think on the whole that it is worth doing, especially for seeds which you know will take several months or even years to germinate. So it's useful for trillium seeds, or for eranthis, sown fresh in May and not inspected till the next January at the earliest.
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Great tip, Carolyn. Thank you
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I agree with Lesley about leaving pots of seeds outside until germination. i would add, though, that I cover the pots - or more conveniently- a whole trayful of pots with horticultural fleece, securely tied round the sides of the tray to keep it in place. This has several advantages: it keeps out hungry mice, voles, blackbirds; it also keeps unwanted weed seeds, dead leaves, liverwort spores, etc from landing in the pots; and it keeps the atmosphere in the pot nice and moist. The two disadvantages are that small slugs can enjoy snacking on my seedlings before I have noticed them and also it's a nuisance untying the fleece every time I want to check the seeds. I think on the whole that it is worth doing, especially for seeds which you know will take several months or even years to germinate. So it's useful for trillium seeds, or for eranthis, sown fresh in May and not inspected till the next January at the earliest.
The idea with the garden fleece is very interesting. I've covered some pots the very long time with a very fine grid (anti-insects). It works well, but it does not help against moss.
I will try your idea. My plan is to build small frames of wood and cover them with the fleece. The control of the pots goes faster.
Is a nice project ... now in winter :).
Best regards
Thomas
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Leaving the pots outside is definitely the best method (I keep some warm germinators to grow under lights in the house just to have fun in the winter).
Instead of fleece (which gets shredded by mice) I use a synthetic shade mesh. It is very light and later in the spring can be folded loose over each tray or 2 mini-hoops (got to be inventive). I don't know if it's the same with what Thomas is using but usually I have no moss...
I took this picture today - I arrange the trays gradually as I get to sow and move the bamboo sticks to the front, just to know where the last row of trays is (not done yet :)
All the best!
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Do you think it is better to wait until September of October to put the seeds of Fritillaria uva vulpis in pots? Since it is an Asian species, I have chances to see germinate if I sow now. Is not it ?
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I'd wait until August to sow , and water well in beginning of September, Fred.
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Patience, patience ... ☺ My plant (single clone) does not produce seeds. I am glad to have received seeds from SRGC in order to have a chance to multiply in a few years.
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My adult plant is already starting to throw jets off the ground.
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I'd go with what others say for most things - sow now and let the cold get to them (or at least what passes for cold in our soggy mild bit of NW Wales). I've had good success this way even with things that are supposed to be sown earlier like bulb seeds.
The only exception are very small seeds like many Campanulas and Gentians - these don't tend to need stratification and I think are more prone to rotting due to their small size.
Incidentally, does anybody else leave a few weed seedlings in their pots if they have been out a long time? So long as they don't get too big I think they can help to keep an open soil structure, otherwise pots left out can get very compacted.
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Also does anyone have any advice on suitable host plants for Pedicularis (mostly Chinese spp)? I sowed some on their own last year but after good germination they stopped and died. I've sown some with some grasses but would be interested if anyone has other advice.
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Pedicularis seems to need a host plant, e.g. Rhinanthus Presumably these are even certain types that must be present.
Last year I made a large-scale sowing experiment in the open air in the autumn, with a bed in which typical plant types
were already (established).
Let's see what will. In a lean meadow it worked very well with Rhinantus.
Bernd
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In the UK our native Pedicularis are found in wet meadows, marshes and mountain flushes. Rhinanthus are parasitic plants on grasses. I have tried sowing Rhinanthus seeds on my front "lawn" but they do not germinate.
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I have tried sowing Pedicularis and other hemiparasitic plants both in pots and in situ. Although I had good germination in pots the plants never lived on. Plants sown outside among other plants (mostly grass) have survived and even flowered. I have had best result with Castilleja though.
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I got seeds of Narcissua bulbodicum at the seed exchange. When should I sow them?
thanks :)
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Sow them half way down a pot now, Helga - you may get some sporadic germination but most should come up next year.
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Thanks, Maggi! :D
will do that!
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A number of seed pods start to open when the seed are still green or white, only turning brown as they dry. Eranthis species, and Caltha palustris currently come to mind. Naturally these would scatter, drying as they mature, and germinate the next autumn/spring. Is it possible to gain any advantage by early collection and sowing while still green/white and before the seeds go dormant? Looks like I will have lots of the Caltha this year. Maybe a walk by the river is called for ;-)
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I've sown seed from a pod on Paeonia ositii that got broken off when they were still cream (normally black). Germinated happily next spring and resulting plants have been flowering well this year. Not sure that gained anything - peony seed will often germinate next spring anyway although it does often wait till second season, but certainly not harmful.
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I was thinking more of jumping a season by preventing dormancy. Just something I recall, but maybe under lab. conditions.
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Well certainly worth trying. If you have plenty of Caltha you could do a controlled trial...
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Regarding the Caltha seed. I had masses of the white form this last summer/autumn and I sowed two potsful of very fresh seed as I think it is such a lovely thing in bloom and I wanted it for my little nursery. The seeds were still greenish and I had snipped the capsules off the plant as soon as they began to open They germinated in about 3 weeks to a month after sowing, hundreds of them, while the weather was hot but I was watering a lot so that was all right. Then one night after about a week, the whole lot vanished! I could still see the remains of the tiny stems but every cotyledon leaf was gone. AND NO MORE CAME UP! It was a slug, as there was the silvery trail as evidence. I have learned, late, to put a single slug pellet onto every seed pot before germination starts, usually in the corner where the seeds are not spread but the slug manages to sense it somehow and in what has been a very rainy year, I've disposed of many slugs before seedling have disappeared.
I first had Caltha palustris alba in the early 1980s, a small plant I was able to get buy and bring home from Jack Drake's Inshriach nursery. It survived for a few years but wasn't happy and it was only when it flowered at last and I harvested a very few seeds, that it decided to enjoy the southern hemisphere, I had previously had seed from Jack but, being older seed had never had germination. So for Caltha at least and I believe for all Ranunculaceae, very fresh seed is vital even if it means sowing at the worst possible time.
I'll be much more careful with the seed which forms in 2019/20. If you'd like some white Brian, let me know. I would send it literally on the day it comes from the plant.