Seeds
- To: perennials@mallorn.com
- Subject: Seeds
- From: J* N* Y*
- Date: Tue, 27 Jun 2000 14:24:47 -0400
When you sow a bunch of seeds into one small pot, intending to
separate them later, when is the best time to separate them?
Crockett said to wait until the seedlings had a pair of true leaves.
He would upend the pot, tap out the ball of soil, then upend it and drop
it from a height of about one foot. This would cause the ball of soil to
fall apart, separating the seedlings without his having to pull them
apart.
Due to lack of indoor space, I procrastinated on repotting and
waited until they were all crowded and had several sets of leaves. They
were hard to separate; sometimes I pulled them the clump apart, and
sometimes I used a serrated knife to slice the roots.
Problem is, with all those sets of leaves, the plants were kind of
top-heavy while the roots were still spidery little things. After
transplanting, I firmed up the soil around the crown, but was afraid to
push too hard and damage the stem. The plantlets kind of tilted into the
soil.
Now I'm wondering if seedlings should be separated earlier, rather
than later. They seem so fragile when they only have two true leaves,
but more-developed plants seem have trouble holding their heads up.
When do you transplant?
Janet
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