sowing seeds

Suddenly the air has a softer, spring-like feel.  It was very pleasant out in the greenhouse, listening to the radio while sowing seeds.  After a break from raising any ornamentals from seed last year, while I tried to catch up with myself, this year I ordered what was meant to be a sensible number of packets from Chiltern Seeds and Plant World.  However, add in the free seeds that came with magazines in the past year and are still in date, and I have a formidable number of varieties to deal with.

Chiltern Seeds package their product in small, plain white envelopes.  Occasionally one will carry a brief message about cultivation, either warning you that These seeds have been removed from cold store and should be sown as soon as received, or else advice on stratification.  Most of the time you are on your own as to what to do with them.  I've got them mostly in a large propagating case at ambient temperature, which is the level reached by an unheated greenhouse boosted by the thermal gain of an additional plastic case.  I had doubts about the large seeds of the Leopard Lily, Belamcanda chinensis, since some looked as though they had started to sprout in the packet, while others were shrivelled.  Maybe some are still good, but I wondered if they should have been sown as soon as ripe.  Large seeds tend not to keep so well as tiny ones like foxgloves and annual poppies, which can remain viable for decades.  Still, I read the other day about some sixty year old tomato seeds which were said to have germinated.

Plant World put a colour picture and some information on their packets, though the advice is quite generic, with some advice about whether heat or cold stratification is needed, but nothing too precise about the number of days before you can expert germination.  Thompson and Morgan tend to give detailed information on germination temperatures and timing.  Then there was a packet of Eryngium that came free with Gardens Illustrated, and some varieties I saved myself last year.  I didn't know off the top of my head what the Alcea cannabina I bought last year at Beth Chatto would like, so guessed room temperature, until I read something to the contrary.

The pots look very hopeful, tucked up under their plastic roofs, but experience has told me not to get too excited yet.  I might have got a dud lot of compost, which is a depressing thought, but compost varies wildly from year to year even for the same brand, as the manufacturers alter the recipe according to price and availability of ingredients.  I have had plants sit and do absolutely nothing for ages, which suddenly romped away when they were repotted.  A Hoya, given to me as a barely rooted cutting, scarcely made any more roots in two years, and appeared constantly on the verge of death.  In despair I moved it into a fresh pot, trying not to break off the few roots it had, and it increased ten-fold in size within months.  An anemone I had from the normally reliable Avon Bulbs was equally reluctant to grow, putting out the odd leaf which promptly died, until given a different growing medium more to its liking.

Mould might strike and ruin everything.  I washed the pots, washed the labels, used a freshly opened bag of new compost, washed the propagating cases and lids, but you never know.  The air is full of spores, ready to land on my pots of seeds and cause carnage.  Sometimes doom can be introduced via the seeds themselves, if the seed case is infected.  I have had pots in the past where a thick white growth of fungus appeared around every seed within days.

Even if they germinate, a hot day could spell disaster.  The greenhouse is quite well provided with opening windows, but it can be tricky keeping the temperature inside down on a really sunny day, especially if I'm not here to damp the floor down at lunchtime, or the amount of sunlight ramps up on a day when I'm out and haven't left all the windows open.  I'll apply shading paint in a month or so, which helps, but a three inch pot of compost can dry out extremely quickly.

Or pests could find their way to the seedlings before they are big enough to make more than a single mouthful  for a slug or snail.  I've scattered a few slug pellets into each case, to act as decoys, but that might not be enough.  I spent part of the afternoon emptying out the remains of most of the species tulip and fritillary bulbs I potted up last autumn, a sad reminder that a few determined pests can wreck most gardening projects before they have fairly got going.