Re: Germinating seeds?

If your digitalis babies are really crowded, you will be better off doing a
little thinning now - use a tweezer if you can't get your fingers on them,
or cuticle scissors and cut them off at soil level.  This will give the
others some breathing room so they can grow and then you can transplant
them when they are big enough to handle comfortably, or just plant out
little clumps of them and let them fight it out as they would in nature. 
When they self seed, the seedlings come up so thickly they are like a mossy
carpet and only the very strongest survive.  I generally go around and pull
up clumps of them to leave space between clumps of them - just so they have
a bit of room, and leave them to the battle - this is outdoors, mind, not
when I plant in pots or flats.

You will get larger plants that will bloom earlier if you can thin them out
so there is an inch of space between seedlings and let them get a bit
larger before you transplant.  Digitalis has a very fine, hair like root
system which makes untangling the roots of seedlings grown too close
together difficult without a lot of root damage which sets the plants back
tho' they are tough and will probably recoup and grow.

I have found that transplanting plants that are microscopic usually means a
lot of losses, besides being tedious beyond measure; it's better to wait
until they are an inch or an inch and a half tall; big enough so they don't
get lost in the new pot, but small enough so their roots aren't permanently
entwined.  If you thin to an inch apart and your potting medium is not
extremely loose, it is often better to take tap out the medium with
seedlings and cut little blocks, each with a seedling and some roots, out
of it with a sharp knife instead of trying to pull the little plants apart.
Some roots are lost, but those that remain are undisturbed and so don't
lose their fine feeder roots and the plants don't mind.

If it's past frost time when they are ready to be transplanted, you can
either pot them on for setting out in the early fall or transplant them to
a shaded, very well prepared nursery bed to let them grow on until fall and
move them to their permanent locations then.   I have found that putting
small seedlings into a border is not a good plan because the other plants
growing there first will overwhelm them and you will forget them until it
is too late and they will have just disappeared...better to let them get to
good size before putting them where you really want them.

Marge Talt, zone 7 Maryland
mtalt@clark.net
Editor:  Gardening in Shade
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> From: WHTROS@aol.com
> Date: Friday, February 19, 1999 1:56 AM

(snip)
> But I now have some very, very tiny seedlings emerging (digitalis, etc.).
> Tried to only sprinkle in a couple dz. at most but there looks like a
hundred
> instead!
> When is the best time to transplant these?
> Now or when they get bigger?
(snip)

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