Scottish Rock Garden Club Forum
Seedy Subjects! => Grow From Seed => Topic started by: Mike Ireland on June 13, 2014, 12:34:06 PM
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Fresh seed of Primula reidii williamsii, is it best to sow now or keep seed in the fridge & sow early next year?
Any suggestions or experiences would be welcome.
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Sow now Mike . If you've got plenty, you could do both. Should get an early germination if you sow now and get good sized babies to take through the winter and get going at speed next year.
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Definitely worth experimenting as Maggi says if you've got enough seed. If the weather turns or stays hot you might need to be a bit careful to keep the little ones cool.
My best results were from sowing on to a clean pot full of moist chopped pure sphagnum moss in early spring and sealing the whole thing inside a polythene bag. I saw this recommended somewhere for tiny seeds such as primula, rhododendron, gesneriads as it largely prevents issues with damping off, sciarid fly, liverworts etc. Weaning the seedlings on to normal substrates afterwards can be a bit tricky though. So I found it best to wait until they were fairly big first. Sounds like a lot of fuss but I tried this method with several primulas, rhododendrons etc from a Chadwell collection and had a lot of success.
My efforts with reidii since then (using 'normal' peaty seed composts) have been more hit and miss but I usually get a few seedlings - obtaining the seed to start with is the tricky bit!
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Thanks Maggi & Darren, I will pass your info on to my friend.
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Sow it now and keep really cool if you are having any sort of a summer at all.