Re: HYB: Planting seedlings

Just finished lining out about 50 seedlings from the early germinants
from all the seed germination experiments last fall/winter.  They are
definitely a lot bigger than the regular spring germinated ones.  A few
of the earliest (those that germinated after only two months of
chilling) are as big as most of my seedlings usually are by the second
spring.

Most were big enough to have small rhizomes producing those big fat
roots instead of just the little fibrous ones.

The spring germinants are still too small to line out in the garden, and
now that hot muggy weather seems to have finally arrived, they will have
to be even bigger to survive transplanting into the gravel rows.

Time will tell whether or not the early germinants will stay ahead of
the later ones.  If the early germinants aren't big enough to bloom by
next spring, the others will surely catch up with them by the spring
after that.

I have planted some seeds individually in small pots and have also
transplanted very small seedlings into small pots.  They are easier to
transplant to their final location in the garden that way.  However,
very small seedlings lined out into large window boxes have grown on
much better than those moved into small pots and better than those
planted as individual seeds in small pots.  I guess it's a tradeoff
between undisturbed roots using individual small pots and bigger plants
using the large planters.

The individual seeds were those that were late germinants still in the
fridge - so maybe this isn't a fair comparison.  They may be slower
growers.

Mike Sutton, didn't you say you no longer plant one seed per container?

--
Linda Mann east Tennessee USA zone 7/8
East Tennessee Iris Society <http://www.korrnet.org/etis>
American Iris Society web site <http://www.irises.org>
talk archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-talk/>
photos archives: <http://www.hort.net/lists/iris-photos/>
online R&I <http://www.irisregister.com>

---------------------------------------------------------------------
To sign-off this list, send email to majordomo@hort.net with the
message text UNSUBSCRIBE IRIS
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index