Re: dealing with seedlings was: Seeds
- To:
- Subject: Re: dealing with seedlings was: Seeds
- From: M* T*
- Date: Wed, 28 Jun 2000 02:35:25 -0400
Janet,
You can pot most seedlings on when they are large enough to get your
fingers around a leaf to use as a handle - can be a seed leaf or a
true leaf. Some plants - Arisaema and Cyclamen, for instance, as
well as some bulbs - want to stay in their seedpots for at least a
year - until after their 2nd period of growth. But, most perennials,
biennials and annuals can be potted on as soon as you think they are
large enough to deal with.
If a plant is notorious for resenting root disturbance, it's best to
plant individual seeds or two or three to a pot and then cut off the
least promising to leave one plant per pot. That way, there's very
little root disturbance when they are transplanted.
I've procrastinated many a time in my life and not done the potting
on when it should have been done. Have dealt with this a couple of
ways....
One was to cut the seedlings apart as you did. I will also pinch or
cut back the stems to help offset the loss in roots - this also makes
them less likely to fall over.
Another is to simply take the entire seedpot and pot it into a larger
pot just so the poor dears have a tad more root room. This won't
work with all plants, but will with some.
Still another is to unpot them and hold the entire clump in a bucket
of water to remove the soil and make it easier to separate the roots
without a lot of damage to them. Gently shaking the clump while very
gently pulling it apart in water will usually do the trick.
Peat pots have been recommended and if you can (unlike me) make sure
they don't dry out, they will work for a lot of plants - some don't
thrive in them, I have found. Those little peat buttons that expand
when wet are also an alternative. I still prefer seeding in pots and
potting on, but whatever works best for you is the best way to go!
Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor: Gardening in Shade
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> From: Janet N. Yang <jyang1@home.com>
> Date: Tuesday, June 27, 2000 2:24 PM
>
> 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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