Tuesday, February 21, 2012

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.













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