Too many perennials to manage

Unfortunately, I had a terrible leg injury from a hockey game just over three weeks ago.  For the last week it has been much better, but for the first two weeks I could hardly walk and wasn't able to get as much accomplished as I would have liked, especially in completing the greenhouse to be ready for use. Given the weather forecast, I have every intention of having the greenhouse ready to hold plants within the week.  I was originally planning to have the greenhouse ready by about the 20th of February because this is when I figured we would be able to put the lowest winter temperatures behind us.  I suspect the greenhouse can handle temperatures down to about -10 to -15°C, and was therefore not planning to use the greenhouse until we got past mid-February. so I'm not really behind schedule as far as putting the greenhouse to use, but I am pushed into a bit of a corner now on getting it ready.

The perennials are growing, in many cases more than I had expected and faster than I had expected.

I have been transplanting some of the lilies and hostas into styrofoam cups to thin out the seedlings for about the last week, and now am doing so with the hibiscus seedlings as well.

I had three ricinus plants pop up really fast about two weeks ago and before I could do anything with them, they had rotted on the stem.  Unfortunately, they are prone to having the seed casing stick to the leaves when it sprouts up, and then the casing starts to rot and destroys the leaves and plants.  Fortunately, I have lots of seeds left to try and get it right.  I planted a few more seeds, one of them sprouted and I have been taking good care of it, checking on it frequently so that I can remove the seed casing once the leaves are grown and it sprouts out of the soil.

I am up against the wall on planting a few dozen seeds that will require about three months to grow before ready for planting.  Mostly it's all petunias and geraniums.  I will need to get them planted this week ASAP.

As for the cannas, I haven't been doing much with them at all.  I'm probably going to cut most of them back later this week and move them into the greenhouse at week's end. 

These are the hibiscus plants that sprouted.  Unfortunately the seeds for the oriental lilies  in the back
don't seem to be yielding any useful sprouts for me.

I moved the hibiscus seedlings into the cups sooner than I really would have liked, but they were starting to collect mold from the moisture in the tray and had to be moved.
I wasn't expecting that many of the seeds to sprout, and I doubt I can make use of them all, so I have only set aside about 20 plants into the styrofoam containers for now.

Last week, I snapped a picture of a tray loaded with daylily seedlings.
I thinned out the trays by moving some into styrofoam, and was left with this.

I moved the more mature daylilies into styrofoam, kept the small ones in the tray to catch up.

These are the little canna seedlings that are growing incredibly fast.

This is the tray of hosta sprouts.  I haven't thinned them out yet into styrofoam.
I did thin out hostas from a different tray, but they grow slower and are less finicky
than daylilies so I figured I could wait another week and hopefully get them separated
in the greenhouse.

This is a canna lily seed, just beginning to sprout.
In order to get these guys to grow, I had to scrape them with pruning shears to
allow some moisture in past the hard shell.  Then I soaked them in water until these little
sprouts started to pop out, and I promptly put them in soil and into the propagator.

These are several of the ones that have sprouted so far.  Still about 15-20 seeds left.

On the left are canna lily sprouts.  in the middle are hosta sprouts.
Circled in red is the first of 3 Strelitzia "Birds of Paradise" sprouts (assuming the other two will sprout eventually!)
Circled in yellow are the first two (of hopefully dozens) oriental lilies to sprout

These lilies don't seem to be doing much....

This is a tray full of hosta sprouts.

This is a tray of daylily sprouts

Also currently sprouting in other trays:  lots more oriental lilies, lots of hibiscus, more daylilies and hostas, and a tray full of cannas that are starting to sprout.

New sprouts, more planting, new toy

I had to pick up some more seed starting soil and they had a bunch of indoor starting sets with heat mats, so I decided to pick one up.  Having the Venus Fly Traps, the banana plants and the Birds of Paradise, plus the canna lily seeds, which all would grow best at 25°C or so.  Since I am using regular fluorescent lights and plastic covers, not enough heat is generated and stored to really get the trays above room temperature, and I'm also a little impatient waiting and hoping for some sprouts from the tropical plants.  So the heat mat should help.

Just a little thin mat to put under the tray and plug in.

I have been using it a couple days now, and I put a thermometer in there this morning for about an hour just to check how hot it gets.  The thermometer picked up an ambient temperature of about 30° so I unplugged it for now, and after less than an hour, the temperature is back down to about 20° again.  So I will probably just run the heat overnight and then maybe let it sit at room temperature during the day.


Also, I finally am seeing sprouts from the hostas that I planted in the new year.  I had originally just planted one seed per cell, which was a mistake.  On average, you should plant about six seeds in expectation that one will grow.  So, two weeks ago when the daylilies sprouted, I had planted a bunch of hosta seeds into the tray after none had sprouted.  Seeing sprouting after two weeks now means they are growing well, and right on schedule.

This picture is a little poor because of the light refracting off all the water, but it shows
pretty well how many hostas are sprouting.  It also shows how erratic they can be:
Some cells are sprouting several plants, others literally have none.

Here you can see the hosta sprouts as well.
I planted the remaining stock of canna lily seeds too.

 Those little sacks are Jiffy pellets.  they are compressed dry soil in little sacs, and when they are exposed to water, they soak it up and expand and become self-contained little cells for planting.  I planted my remaining canna lily seeds into those pellets, at 2 per cell.  The seeds required some preparation because the coat is so strong.  I used pruning shears to nick the shell and scrape an opening for water to penetrate.  I played around with a few seeds by completely stripping the shell, or by cutting it in half in a way to not damage the embryo.  I'm curious to see if they grow or grow faster or anything.


 The daylily sprouts are doing well, and I'm hopefully that the seeds I had planted last week will have sprouted by this time next week.  This goes along with a lot of seeds I had planted last week.  I have the two trays of daylilies and a container full of hosta seeds.  At a two-week standard rate to sprout, I'm going to check on them probably everyday this week to see some growth.  I'm also going to pick up some styrofoam cups, as they were recommended for growing the sprouts once they get big enough to split off.

A week after they had sprouted and needed to be moved, here are the daylilies.