Larkspur

Has anyone here had good success with Larkspur? Last year I direct sowed a bunch and only 1 sprouted and promptly died. This year I WS'd some back in Jan/Feb and some a couple weeks ago..........so far neither is showing any signs of sprouting.
Is there something I'm not doing right?

Thanks,
Steven

I W/S my larkspur on 1/14 with probably a 50-60 % germination rate on 3/24 and planted them on 4/1. I will cover them tonight as freeze warnings are in effect till the weekend.

So the larkspur should have been one of the first things to sprout............Any ideas what I'm doing wrong?

I sowed Consolida regalis on 2/3, sprouted 3/20. I don't remember right now where I got the seed, maybe one of the swaps. Before that, I wouldn't know a Larkspur if it was right in front of me, so I don't know what to to tell you. I surface sowed most small seeds, buried some others, and if in doubt I sowed some deep and some shallow.

This is what Tom Clothier's site says about the one I have, also called Delphinium consolida:

"Delphinium consolida , larkspur , Type= annual , direct sow in winter for spring germ. @ 70ºF , 10-20days"

I'm guessing our weather is warmer here, and we did have warm (70's) weather before they sprouted, so maybe when your weather warms up they'll sprout? I don't know. Here's that site if you're not familiar with it:

http://tomclothier.hort.net/index.html

Our weather has been fairly warm the past week or two around 50, so maybe once it gets a bit warmer they'll sprout.
I sowed 2 different varieties from 2 different places so one of them should sprout.....

SW~ I think Claypa has a point, my germinated after five days of 70's, which persisted with a few days of the 80's until I planted them out, they had outgrow the W/S container...the dear weatherman didn't say a thing about upcoming freezing weather until Mon nite.

I W/S'd Larkspur Genetian Blue (Value Seed) on March 11 and it germinated April 1. I won't be planting it out in the garden until the temps warm up though.

What kind of container are you using SW? I planted mine in a 1/2 gal plastic milk container with the top left off. Some of the containers I've used for other seeds have had no germination at all... specifically clear plastic water bottles (16 oz.). I'm wondering if the size of the container has any bearing. So far my experience has been the bigger the container, the more successful the germination. Just a thought.

Di

Di, I used a dome container that a head of lettuce came in, I've got 2 like it I'm using, one has Shirley Poppies in it growing well and this one has nothing.
I think you may be right about the size mattering, I planted a bunch of small ziplock bags and theres nothing in any of them so far.
The other Larkspur ('Earl Grey') is planted in a large ziplock bag, I've been having good sucess with those.

Maybe I just have to wait for the weather to get warmer..........Oooh, I wish it would hurry!

Steven

I had a bunch of larkspur germinate when we were having great weather. They were so new they didn't even have leaves yet, just the root emerging from the seed. I had read warnings about leaving containers in the sun with their lids on, so I took it off. They were all dead the next day. I decided to keep the lid off and see what happened. When we had another warm spell, I did get 1 more seed to germinate, and this one has it's cotyledons and the first set of true leaves are just starting to grow. I think I'll have to plant more seeds, since having only 1 larkspur might look silly. ;-) Tamara