Perennials planted

Of all the perennial seeds I collected last fall, I got most of them planted this weekend:  daylilies, hostas, asiatic and oriental lilies, and half of my ricinus seeds.

Here's where we left off on the daylily sprouts, midweek

They were getting too big so I moved them into their own container for a couple weeks while they grow out.
Seven of ten grew, so I replanted a couple new seeds to see if I could get all the cells growing.

These are the ricinus sprouts.
With the small one, the seed shell got stuck to the leaves as it grew out of the soil and rotted the leaves.
Not sure if it's going to grow or not, but it looks like it's still kicking along for now.

(Click to enlarge)
I set the daylily seeds on the soil, and packed them in pretty tight.
Based on my expectation of 50% to grow, and the test where 70% grew, I decided to
plant the seeds in small spaces, close together. 
The sprouts are small enough they can flourish for probably a month before I would need to split them apart.

Here I put the others:  tiger lilies, asiatic and oriental lilies.
The seeds for the oriental don't look very good at all, so I packed them really tight together.
The asiatics I just sprinkled heavily onto the soil. 
My expectations for either aren't all that high.

 

 

 

Cover the trays in plastic bags to seal in moisture so that the trays don't need to be fiddled with until the sprouts arrive.
Not sure for the asiatics, but the daylilies and hostas should be 2 weeks until sprouting.

I didn't post a picture of the hosta container.  I just took a really large container I had previously used for the canna lilies, put down 2" of soil, and then sprinkled the hosta seeds over the soil heavily.  I had easily enough to cover the area, so they were piled on very thick.  Then sprinkled soil on top lightly, watered, and covered with clear plastic to lock in the moisture so the seeds don't dry out.

I had about two-dozen ricinus seeds from collecting in the fall.  I managed to fit about half into a container, similar to how I planted the hostas, but smaller.  Because they are growing tall so quickly, I built a little frame with a tray holder and some wire to prop up the plastic bag I sealed the container with.  It should allow the ricinus sprouts to reach about one foot tall, which should give me a month or more to deal with them.

Received my final seed order.  A few annual flowers--I thought I would need more petunias than I had ordered, and I added a couple other things that I thought would be easy to get rid of.  I also picked up a dozen "Bag o' Blooms" hanging planting bags and some trailers for the hanging bags and pots.

Two new sprouts

I had two little sprouts waiting for me this evening when I popped off the lid of the propagator.

Both are dayliles, and since I have one whole tray dedicated to those seeds, I'm hopeful that I will have a bunch more of them sprouting up this week.  Also, since daylily seeds were the ones that I got the most of this fall, I'm very pleased to see that they are growing.  I probably have a couple hundred sitting around waiting to be sown.

Two little sprouts on the bottom row

Here's a display of the seeds I have planted:

Construction photos

The sides frames are constructed and placed to the front frame.

I am going to add a little diagonal bracing with leftover wood before the cover goes on.

The roof of the structure is not shown.
I am bending rebar from back to front to create a round roof.
The quanzet shape catches light better than others.

I drew the red line in to represent the way the rebar will bend over the structure for the roof.

Standing inside there with all the walls up really gave me a good sense of how much room there is to grow all the plants.  I think the 16x10 structure is going to be very good for a first-time greenhouse grower like myself. 

Castor oil plant update

The second ricinus sprout is now clearly visible. 

The first sprout is interesting to watch.
The first leaf is growing from the seed before it pops up from the soil.

They are getting too biog for the propagator!
A couple days later, the first one is pushing upright and I had to make a new dome for it to grow under.

 Now I'm in a jam because this plant is going to need a bigger pot soon, but the roots will be very fragile for transplanting.  Luckily, these plants seem to grow well from the seed, so even if I lose these two, I don't see why I can't prepare another batch of seeds and a container that can properly handle their height, and do well with them again.

I'm also really curious to see how the plant is going to fill in.  I am anxious to see how quickly the stalk starts to branch off, though I would assume that won't happen for quite some time.

Update on the lilies.  I got all of them into the room under the window except for 3.

These are going to be a pain to water....

This is my biggest one.  It surprises me to see how well all the shoots are doing.
They are all crammed so close together, but continue to grow well.

Seeds are sprouting!

I'm very relieved to see some sprouting this evening in the seed propagator.  After I put in a weak effort to see if some seeds would grow in November, nothing at all sprouted and that certainly didn't help with the stress of having to try to plant hundreds of seeds this winter and hope that things go well.  This time around, I used a proper seed propagator, proper seeding soil and have actually taken steps to monitor the process to ensure things are looking good.  Happily, things seem to be going well.

Second row, middle cell:  a little sprout has curled its way out of the seed and has then shot over the soil line.
Above the sprout:  the big dot in the cell is another sprout that has curled out from the seed but not yet shot upward.

Both of the plants that are sprouting are ricinus (castor oil plant).  Incidentally, I had planted a few of these seeds in the tray that I had planted in November.  The peat was too dry and none of the seeds sprouted, so when I planted this seed tray, I put two of them in there, and now they are both the first to sprout.

Here is a grown ricinus plant:

These are interesting plants.  They grow a few feet tall, even 6', and have large leaves on bold red stems.
They have little red flowers that aren't very striking, but the flowers give way to unique seed pods in the fall.

The seeds are kind of pineapple-y, and
change from bluish-green to bright red. 

Seed pods near maturity.

Teaser: greenhouse construction photo.

Rear wall frame....or is it the front wall?  I'm not really sure.
Doorway in the center, vent over top, and vent in the bottom corner (not visible)

 This is the north-facing wall frame of the structure.  On the one hand, it has the door, so does that make it the front?  On the other hand, the sun exposure is from the south, so would that make this wall the back?  I really don't know, but I'll post photos of the structure soon and then maybe it will be easier to judge....

Venus Fly Trap

I planted the Venus Fly Trap seeds, along with banana plants and Birds of Paradise.  There was extra space in the seed tray, so I added in some of the perennials I collected in the Fall:  hostas, daylilies, tiger lilies, ricinus (castor oil plant).  I have them in a domed propagator which keeps the moisture in and retains a slightly higher temperature.

The dome traps in the moisture so the seeds and soil won't dry out.
Water droplets sit along the inner surface of the dome and make it hard to get a good picture.
A secondary light sits on top to help raise the temperature a bit for a couple hours everyday.

 

The dome is marked in magic marker so I won't forget what is planted where.
And I can get a temperature reading from the little silver gadget in there - 20.3°C
(Unfortunately, I can't seem to get it quite as hot as I would like,  >22°C)

 Today, I created some more space for the lilies to sit under the window of the utility room.

I still have about a dozen plants in other rooms.

A few of them aren't doing so well.  After I watered and fertilized the other night, I will probably give up on the ones that haven't grown any shoots yet in the next 7-10 days.  I also need to extend the other shelf out from the window to make floor space for the remaining plants in my living room.  I don't mind having a coupe around the house, as they spruce the place up a bit, but now that they are big enough, they can sit under the window and do just fine.

They are all getting too big for the shelves. I'm constantly pulling them out and putting them on the floor all around the house so I finally got rid of some of the shelves and gave them more floor space where they belong, under the south-facing window.

Interestingly, when I was dismantling the shelving units, I checked out the seed tray I had set up  several weeks ago (and which had no success).  It turns out that the seeds did not really fail, they never even began to germinate.  The canna lily seeds are still perfectly good.  Some of the smaller seeds would be too hard to find in the soil to bother trying to salvage, but the bigger ones can still be tried out.  This time, I started the seeds with a better compost soil mixture instead of the peat.  I was never too confident that the peat would be a good growing medium in the first place, so I'm at least glad that the seeds are in fine condition to be tried again in proper soil.