Every year, I promise I won’t buy or try to start nearly as many seeds as the prior year.  And every year I fail miserably in this resolution.  I was so sure I could do it this year but have experienced failure on an epic scale.  I started by just ordering a few “necessities,” but then more catalogs came and I had more free time, so I stumbled across more seed possibilities online.

In the end, I ordered seeds from several US sources, seeds from Australia and seeds from the UK.  All combined, I have about 100 different types of seed to start in 2018!

I’m not clear what possesses me.  Every packet of seeds means more work and more time.  However, I just LOVE starting plants from seed.  More than anything.  It is a sickness.  And to my knowledge, there are no rehab clinics for seed starters or plant hoarders.  So, I just have to live with myself.

Despite the wet and windy weather, I completed some tasks today.  I watered the greenhouse plants.  The main Pleione formosana pot in the greenhouse, which is probably six years or so, has been producing little pseudobulblets every year, and this year more than ever.  So, I grabbed a bunch of them and potted them in some moss mixed with perlite and starter mix.  There were sixteen babies in all!  If all of those get to blooming size, that will allow me to pass some on to friends and plant sales in a year or two.   Also, I want to plant some outside to see how they do.  They are hardy in our zone.  A great plantsman that sells Pleiones, Strange Wonderful Things, shows this picture of them planted in the garden:

The rest of my tasks were seed related.  I checked on the coleus and begonia seeds that I planted a few weeks ago.  There are probably 20 coleus seedlings up, but it didn’t look like any of the begonias germinating.  But then, just now, I decided to take a picture for this blog.  And as I brought the seed tray (a repurposed egg carton) into bright light and started taking pictures.  And suddenly, there were the baby begonias.  They are up, for sure, but are they ever tiny!  I think they are the most diminutive seedlings I’ve ever grown.  So, you won’t see them very well in the photos here–my phone couldn’t even focus on them, that’s how tiny they are.  But I would guess there are 15 of them up and growing!  Hurray!

If you look really closely, you can make out some teeny tiny begonia babies.

A different cell with begonia seedlings.

And here are the coleus babies.  Some of them are coloring up, already.

I started these seeds in Espoma seed mix with a top layer of sphagnum moss.  I put the tray in a plastic bag and placed everything on a heat mat under LED plant lights.  It seems to be working.

There are some great YouTube videos on almost any topic.  I happened to be watching one on growing bonsai from seed and I was surprised when the host was scarifying seeds.  He showed how you can clip hard-coated seeds by clipping the seed with nail clippers.  I had tried this before, with mixed success.  He showed that you should clip the “eye” of the seed.  His reasoning is that this is where the baby plant is waiting and the best place for hydration to reach.  I decided to try this technique.  Brother Tim and I had found some seed pods on a honey locust tree (Gleditsia triacanthos) recently,

(see example of pods above) so I thought I’d start with those.  I clipped them as I saw on the video and dropped them in the water. They plumped up well overnight and I planted them in a 4″ square pot this morning and watered it well. While I was at it, I dropped some maple seeds from my favorite neighborhood Japanese maple into the water to soak, and some seeds off my giant Echinops ritro plant.  I potted those up this morning, too.  Lastly,  some of the seeds I got from the UK were Cyclamen coum seeds.  I soaked those overnight, as well, and potted them in a tiny pot.  All of the seed pots got labelled and moved to the greenhouse.  I’m excited to see what comes up!

These arboretum cyclamen inspired me to give these plants a try.

Brother Tim and I wandered about Fremont and Ballard last weekend.  I saw the above Geranium maderense outside The Indoor Sun Shoppe.  I have a seedling in the greenhouse that I will plant outside next spring.  I hope mine gets to be this big and healthy!