12 Month Seed Raising Results

[t00lie]

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 ...
 

[Maggi Young]

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!

[Carlo]

"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.

[Lesley Cox]

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.

[fermi de Sousa]

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

[mark smyth]

My bulb pots have liverwort, two NZ Cardamines and annual grass, Poa annua, that seems to be perennial

[Lesley Cox]

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!

[Lesley Cox]

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.

[Maggi Young]

Oh, my word, poor Otto! What a disaster, we must send him "rib-healing" wishes... all together now.......

[David Nicholson]

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.

[Anthony Darby]

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.

[Martin Baxendale]

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).

[Martin Baxendale]

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.

 

[Lesley Cox]

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.