Seed-starting chronicles 2011

Lori, what temp is you cold room?  I do try to keep track of others' experiences.  Thanks for posting.  I haven't planted anything except some delayed hypogeal germinating lilies.  So far:

Species/nargs#-year of seed collection

Lilium kelleyanum ex Ratco 1909-09 -- germ 1 week,68F(20C).All 4 seeds germinated immediate epigeal. Must not be L. kelleyanum
Lilium ledbourii 1913-09 -- germ 30 days,68F(20C)
Lilium monadelphum col. Georgia 4539-07 -- germ 26 days,68F(20C)
Lilium monadelphum col. Russia 4266-09 -- germ 21 days,68F(20C)
Lilium monadelphum var. szovitsianum col.Georgia 4540-07 -- germ 25 days,68F(20C)

I have planted about 60 different species, about 1/2 is outside.
The rest stand in a room in the basement (12-17C) together with 40 pots that germinated last fall.
These have germinated in the last days:
Rhododendron sp
Triodanis perfoliata
Scilla obtusifolia
Hedysarium boveanum
Urginea undulata
The last three are gifts.

Skulski wrote:

Trond, what light source do you use to keep germinated seedlings/plants indoors all through the winter?    How many months would that be?  (I know your winter must be much shorter than ours... well, whose isn't? :rolleyes:)

Several sprouts now of Helianthemum germanicopolitanum - a yellow-flowered Helianthemum from Turkey - after ~8 days, warm.

I use common white 64Watt fluorescent tube light and place the pots 20-30cm from the tubes. The temperature goes down at night when the light is off so the plants grow slowly. Occasionally I loose some plants - overwatering and/or irregular watering.

Last fall i had to bring the seedlings into the basement from the cold greenhouse mid November (unusual cold weather) but usually I do not move them before Xmas or I place them in a slightly warmer one which I can heat. I bring them back to the cold greenhouse March/April depending on weather.

The sun doesn't give any warmth before ultimo February, my place faces West-Northwest.

He says germination in the 7th week at 40.  That's a long time to wait.  Isn't in interesting that some of the Lomatium spp. die when give 3 months at 70F...

Sorry. No help from me.

I have about 80 pots in cold storage at the moment...will bring the first into heat in about 2 weeks, after 6 weeks strat.  I have a few pots indoors sprouting but I cannot recall the species (I am actually in Calgary visiting my brother at the moment).

Well I have more Lilium spp. that germinated and are producing their tiny underground bulb, like the one I had on the image of the day:
http://nargs.org/smf/index.php?action=dlattach;topic=24.0;attach=11559;i...
But to the non-lilium aficionado the species would all look the same, I think.

I did have an interesting development with one seed of Lilium monadelphum collected on Mt. Gunib, Daghestan, RU: it is producing scales like a lily bulb might do in its second (or greater) year!  In addition, the scales are spaying apart rather than appressed.  If it were treated with colchicine or some other altering  chemical (which it was not), this would be an indication of the bulb converting to a tetraploid from a diploid.   I don't know what to think of it.  At any rate, it is special and one to watch.  Excluding the three scales, the bulb is about 1.5mm in diameter.  The other four germinated seeds from this batch are progressing normally.

Looking good Lori!  I just found my missing 150 packets of left-over NARGS seeds from last years seedex...all are now sown with most in the root cellar for a now, short strat period...I hope 4 weeks is long enough! At last count I have over 250 pots sown!  I expect many will be duds as the seeds were kept at room temp.

I hate it when that happens. 

It seems I am always "misplacing" seed packets!  ;D
Somehow, they get all over the house...

Some excellent links Lori, love Salvia cyanescens, and I think I shall be spending some hours on the Robin's Salvias web site... unfortunately I sense a new overpowering plant lust coming on... SALVIA!

Misplacing seedlings? I do it every year! Once I even weeded out some totally forgetting what it was and that I actually had planted them! I needed space for another batch ;D
Seedbags do I store in a fridge in the basement.
BTW i have sown about 200 pots and 100 more to sow. In a week i'll move some pots out to get more space indoors.

A couple of quick shots of some of my babies.  Pots are sprouting daily!

I can see your picture Lis but I couldn't see Fermi's (in another thread).
Your shed is similar to one of mine made of recycled window panes.

Hoy wrote:

I can see your picture Lis but I couldn't see Fermi's (in another thread).
Your shed is similar to one of mine made of recycled window panes.

I've re-posted them in the hope that others can see them! ;D
(Fermi, your reposted images fixed the problem, thanks!  Mark McD)

Lis,
that shows what determination you guys in Canada have to have to raise all those seedlings!
cheers
fermi

Skulski wrote:

For me, the crux is the point where I have to start separating seedlings into individual pots... where there was one pot, there is suddenly 4 or 6!  I can only keep that many with the amount of room I have!

... although the whole operation will be made easier this year, when it finally gets warm enough to start putting plants out during the day, then putting them back into the garage at night - which won't be for some time yet (oh, have I already mentioned that?  ;D ;D) - by the addition of this new, deluxe, turbo-charged, heavy-duty plant cart! 
Tah dah!! 

Feast your eyes on those sturdy locking wheels!  That solid construction - it holds 4 trays per shelf (without the frightening wobbling of old plastic shelf system)!  The sleek lines.... It's the Rolls Royce Silver Shadow of plant carts!  Or maybe the Lockheed Starlifter of plant carts, I dunno. (Try to imagine it without all the crap piled on its shelves... and maybe with some flames painted on the sides...  ;D)
Envious??  Yeah, I thought so...  :D :D

Lori, if you get only 4-6 pots for each sowed you are luckier (or maybe more restrictive) than me - I usually get the double! (Can't throw any seedling :-[)
Do you export your (patented I suppose?) Rolls Royce Silver Shadow? I'll have some ;D

Todd wrote:

A couple of quick shots of some of my babies.  Pots are sprouting daily!

Nice and orderly, Todd. Do the babies have famous names?

Hoy wrote:

Todd wrote:

A couple of quick shots of some of my babies.  Pots are sprouting daily!

Nice and orderly, Todd. Do the babies have famous names?

I actually copied-pasted Todd's pics of seed pots, so that I could rotate the image 90 degrees to the left (to make the labels right-reading), and zoomed in a bit, to see what species were planted.  Curious minds... :rolleyes: ;D

McDonough wrote:

Hoy wrote:

Todd wrote:

A couple of quick shots of some of my babies.  Pots are sprouting daily!

Nice and orderly, Todd. Do the babies have famous names?

I actually copied-pasted Todd's pics of seed pots, so that I could rotate the image 90 degrees to the left (to make the labels right-reading), and zoomed in a bit, to see what species were planted.  Curious minds... :rolleyes: ;D

I thought of doing something like that - but figured Todd could tell me if he wanted to ;)

You really know to choose the right plants, Lori! I always wonder why I didn't choose those! The only one I have is the Potentilla i think ;D

Lori, nice touch... finding a good photo link for each!  Salvia indica looks like a special one, with different flower coloration than many. The UBC photos of Penstemon davidsonii var. praeteritis show stunning mounds of this species, wow :o

Nice plants, Lori.  Were these all direct warm germinators, or were they in you cold room first? 

(Especially asking about Orostachys iwarenge)

We've had a long stretch of cold weather, night temperatures to 17 F (-8 C) and day time temperature just a little above freezing, so when I walked around looking at the bare frozen ground, and a bunch of seed flats sitting on the frozen ground, I didn't expect to see signs of germination. But two flats of Ungernia sewerzowii, a rare Amaryllid from Kazakhstan, showed fresh germination. The daily routine of frigid nights followed by just-above-freezing mid-day temperature is supposed to continue... not sure if I show bring the flats inside to protect them from tonight's freeze; or since they germinated in this cold, maybe that's what they want.  I sowed more seed of this species around in various spots in the garden last summer; haven't checked to see if there is germination there yet; some areas of snow still remain.

4 seedlings visible on the left side

Here's what this beauty looks like in flower:
Ungernia sewerzowii
http://www.plantarium.ru/page/image/id/12700.html

seed heads:
http://www.plantarium.ru/page/image/id/38905.html
http://www.plantarium.ru/page/image/id/38907.html

Ungernia on Pacic Bulb Society wiki:
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Ungernia

Skulski wrote:

Marmoritis (Phyllophyton) decolorans, a furry little gem:
http://www.efloras.org/florataxon.aspx?flora_id=2&taxon_id=210001233
http://www.alpines.be/Tibet/imageFull281.htm

An awesome plant Lori, I love the squareness on the mature plant.

I haven't tried Saponaria from seed but a lot of other, mostly shade tolerant species.

Ok, I'll do it - tomorrow ;) It's no secrets but I do not remember all - I do not write the names till I am sure the plants survive. Many have only numbers  on reused labels with several names on them!

Skulski wrote:

Here's an interesting development (to me, at least  ;D) on Saussurea medusa seedlings... looks like a little cotton swab growing out of the cotyledon:

Without the cotton swab I would have guessed a maple seedling ;D

(Good heavens, the site above says that tourists pick Saussurea laniceps... !?!?!  :-[)

I have read they even break stalagmites/stalagtites from caves :o

For your curiosity, Lori:

Here are some pf the seedlings ;)

Erythronium mix

Leucocoryne purpurea

http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/FloraEnglish/HighResPages/EH0436.htm

Rhodophiala splendens

http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/FloraEnglish/HighResPages/EH0015.htm

Ribes magellanicum

Tecophilaea violaceae

http://es.wikipedia.org/wiki/Archivo:Tecophilaea_cyanocrocus_var._violac...

Trichopetalum plumosum
http://www.pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/index.php/Trichopetalum

. . . and many more  :o

Skulski wrote:

Wow, it looks like you have had excellent germination on some really choice plants!   What extraordinary flowers on Trichopetalum... reminiscent in appearance of some of the more bizarre Calochortus.

Excellent germination, but then . . .

Hoy wrote:

Skulski wrote:

Wow, it looks like you have had excellent germination on some really choice plants!   What extraordinary flowers on Trichopetalum... reminiscent in appearance of some of the more bizarre Calochortus.

Excellent germination, but then . . .

In my Australian-Flora-Fascination days many years ago, I ordered seed of one of these tricky Trichopetalum species, had some germination, then the seedlings tricked me by dying.  Such a crazy-interesting genus.

A few to report:
These germinated at 70F after about one month of a 40F cold treatment
Silene nigrescens - 6 days
Silene suksdorfii - 4 days
Silene uniflora 'Rosea' - 4 days
Talinum paniculatum - 6 days

Fritillaria tuntasia - germinated at 40F. Seed planted Sept 2009, subject to outside temps.  I candle all my frit and Lilium seeds, but still plant any suspect viable seed.  This frit, I hadn't found any seeds with definite embryos, but one (so far) has come up anyway!

Hoy wrote:

Here are some pf the seedlings ;)

Ribes magellanicum

Trond, good to see a photo of this Ribes, it looks most appealing, I like the hanging racemes of red flowers.  I had a couple of seedlings of this, only about 1" tall as of last year... too early to know whether it survived a second winter.

I always hold ungerminated seed pots for 2 years, you never know if there will be some delayed germination action.  Today I checked a tray of seed pots sown in 2009, and there was germination of two desirable Allium species, A. akaka (shown) and Allium materculae (akin to A. akaka), both from Vlastimil Pilous seed, and a pot of Penstemon arkansanus (shown).  I love when that happens. :D

I also have more 2010 sowed results:

Last season I planted seed of Hieracium lanatum, and also Hieracium villosum from two sources.  Seed was planted on 2 April 2010, and H. villosum germinated 7 and 8 days for the two lots.  H. lanatum did not germinate that season, but it has now sprouted one year later (12 April 2011), after exposure to outside temps for the year.  One of the Hieracium villosum lots also sprouted many more seedlings in the second year.

Also planted in October 2009, two more Fritillaria have sprouted:
F. pallidiflora
F. rhodocankis
Both had one seed each germinate last year, but now have eight and three more, respectively, in addition.

Fritillaria pallidiflora

McDonough wrote:

Hoy wrote:

Here are some pf the seedlings ;)

Ribes magellanicum

Trond, good to see a photo of this Ribes, it looks most appealing, I like the hanging racemes of red flowers.  I had a couple of seedlings of this, only about 1" tall as of last year... too early to know whether it survived a second winter.

Looks like there's been an influx of Ribes magellanicum seed - I had germinated seed in 2009, but it didn't make it to 2010 (very hard winter). I expect you'll have more success, Trond - I'll be looking for cuttings in a few years :)

Here's a picture of part of this seedaholic's set up. I germinate most perennials outside in a cold frame - I'm not in a hurry, so they just germinate naturally when they're ready. I keep the seed trays for 2 or even 3 years in the case of woody plants. You will notice that I have sowed several species in each container - I make sure that I only mix seed that I can easily tell apart at the seedling stage...

About 10 have germinated so far...