germination - now what?

Okay - now that things have finally germinated, what do I do? If the little darlings continue to grow, they will get to crowded, but it is too early, too cold, too wet to plant in the garden. Is the next step to plant them in 3 inch pots like all the seed packages suggest?

For instance, I have 4 red lupins germinating (and probably more coming). It is not a hardship to pot up perennials. But I have probably 300 linaria (toadflax). Who knew so many would germinate? I don't intend to pot up 300 of these - but can I do the HOS (hunk of seeds) in pots until I can plant or give them away?

And thyme - I have lots and lots of thyme and plan to start more (mine! all mine! I REALLY want these!). Now do I really take each little, little plant and place in a three inch pot - or do I take several and put in a 3 inch pot?

I don't know anything about growing thyme - so any advice would be welcome. I presume they prefer to be well drained.

I also have mixed seeds - corn flowers/baby's breath/ red poppies - all germinated. I believe the baby's breath and red poppies don't like to be transplanted, so the earlier I put them in paper pots the better.

I don't mind to the potting . . . I can do this while DH reads the Sharpe series to me. But I don't want to (1) endanger the seedlings or (2) waste time that might be better used accomplishing something else for the garden.

I was goint to post just about the same question: I have tons of seedlings up (will post pictures soon), but am not ready to transplant. Some are luscious and beatuiful and should really go in the ground, others are still small (maybe slow).

When I get better (flu), I will do the annuals, but what should I do with the perennials - pot them up into bigger pots individually? Leave them for a little longer with the usual care?

C.

I know people have reported success with HOS, just popping out hunks of tiny seedlings and putting them straight into the garden. I seem to do better with an approach that lets me baby them a little more, especially with perennials, so I often pot up WS seedlings into flats (deep cell packs) or pots and grow them on for a bit on my deck. Sometimes they don't get planted out into the garden until fall, or even (like the columbine pots that are coming up nicely now) the following spring.

With plants like toadflax, I transplant little clumps of seedlings into cell packs (just like I'd do if I were starting them inside) and then plant them out when the little pots have filled up nicely with roots.

My style fits in line with critter's. When I winter sowed plants 2 years ago I potted them up in 16 oz plastic cups with drainage holes (I purchased a huge container of them from Costco). This year I am using a bunch of 4" pots that I scored from a landscaping company that was planting out flats of annuals. Once they get bigger I will plant my babies in the ground. Right now I still have a lot of prep work and planning before I will be ready to plant them in the ground (it is a bit tough to plan in advance when you don't know what or how many things will sprout).

I will post pictures...but yesterday I potted up my first container of seedlings. It was a container of Lunaria annua seedling (Money Plant). The seedlings were getting pretty big but they only had their initial set of leaves. I was a little surprised to see that they had pretty much filled the container with roots. I potted up about half of the gallon container into 15 pots. Now I have to decide if the other half of the seedlings go in the compost bin...it is just so hard to do that to my babies even though I know that I don't need 30 Lunaria annua plants.

- Brent

Brent, you could always plant out the extras via the HOS method... or give them to a neighbor to just plop into the ground. If they don't make it, nothing lost... but at least you're giving them a chance... then again, compost is good! ;-)

My "advance planning" for WS seedlings consists more of thinking of where I need groundcover type plants, where I have room for clumps of taller plants, etc... if I think in general categories, I generally have somthing germinate well that will fill the bill.

I will probably stick them back in the container and set them with the rest. If they are still alive in a month and I am not completely burned out by then I might give them a chance. Last time I potted up 40 seedling from a coreopsis container and I was begging people all year to take some. It was like "ohh...just maybe I will take one", to which my reply was "NO, YOU WILL TAKE 5 AND YOU WILL TAKE SOME OF THESE AS WELL!!"

- Brent

LOL

Well, we have this huge terrace on our street and some of us are going to in flower gardens. I think this year, it will be enough just to dig up some gardens and plop some easy annuals in the ground.

Then in the fall, we can do some serious soil preparation and landscaping design.

so now you know where a lot of my extras will be going.

I am also making little paper pots which will be filled with seedlings. Each neighbour will get three at their doorstep. :-)

If I have leftovers, I thought I might put a table at the end of the driveway with a 'take me home' sign. I don't have the energy to make paper pots, but cheap paper cups would work. but I'm still at the point where I'm hoping I get something I can plant in MY garden

But your thyme looked fabulous! I bet you will have lots of stuff to plant in your garden, gram.

I have lots of tiny little seedlings. and my thyme is skinny little things. I may bring it outside this weekend for a bit.

edit to add: glad you've got lots of thyme going for you :0)

This message was edited Apr 20, 2007 7:34 AM

Hi Seandor
Thought I'd post this here rather than the 'what's germinated so far' thread".
Here's some info about fertilizing seedlings. The first site is poojer's advice on the subject at GW, and the second talks about fertilizer in the soil and seedling deficiency symptoms:

http://faq.gardenweb.com/faq/lists/wtrsow/2002074341005732.html

http://aggie-horticulture.tamu.edu/extension/ornamentals/seedlings/seedlings.html

Regarding the thyme.....will it get bushier if I pinch it back? I know most plants do but this is my first go-around with thyme and I'd hate to make a horrible faux pas and wipe the poor little things out.

yes, like most herbs, thyme responds really well to pinching back... I think the general rule of thumb is to remove no more than 1/4 to 1/3 the length of each branch. If you look closely at the base of the leaves, several leaf pairs down from the growing tip, you can often see teeny little leaf pairs starting to form where the larger leaf joins the stem... those will form new branches when you pinch the stem just above.

Thanks claypa - I really don't know why I didn't think of fertilizing seedlings. I have been transplanting them as quickly as possible into prefertilized potting soil so they would have some nutrients!

This is my first year and I'm trying to get the hang of handling these babies. It's so different than just plunking out store-bought plants.

Here's my first bed of sweet peas, clarkia, foxglove, poppies, five spot, and pyrethrum. The first pic is on March 10 when first planted out. I fertilized with 1/4 strength MG each week. I covered this bed with a sheet during the freezes in April.

The second pic is April 10. I'm going to have to really restrain myself when choosing how many plants to go in a bed. They looked so small when I planted them, but now I'm probably going to have to do some thinning.

Pam: is that a holding bed, i.e. will you transplant to a permanent location from here? I planted out ONE lupine this evening, and I will see how it does tomorrow, when it will be very bright and warm. If it does ok, I wil plant the rest right there where they will have their permanent home, LOL.

I think I am going to have to pot up at least the perennials, they are so tiny a lot of them.

It wasn't intended to be a holding bed, but I planted too much in there (actually since this is my first year with seedlings, I half expected everything to croak, lol). Since everything is thriving, I'll be thinning it out. I'm not moving the poppies or pixie lupine since I don't think they move well.

so what we should do now is take them out of containers and put in larger one or individual pots i am alittle confused

I was going to ask the same question - some of the noids are planted so thickly they look like they want to be thinned but if they're lobelia I want every last one of them... The part of me that had been reading all those seed packets wanted to start thinning so they were spaced 1" apart but another part of me said whoah you could HOS those into two separate pots at least and then my brain started arguing with itself and you know how bad that can be!

xxxxx, Carrie

I use the clump transplanting method that I learned from Tom DeBaggio on lobelia, and it works really well. My lobelia are inside, but I see no reason not to use it as a way of maximizing number of plants from a WS pot... 3 to 5 or so seedlings per pot (or even more) will yield more plants thay dividing the pot into several large HOS for planting directly out in the garden. See the second paragraph of the instructions I wrote out here http://davesgarden.com/forums/p.php?pid=2172849 for a description of clump transplanting.

Blau, how big a hunk of seedlings (HOS) you use and whether you pot it up or plant it out directly is a matter of personal preference and of how many plants you want to end up with. There are lots of different ways to go about WSing, and you'll figure out what works best for you by trying a few different things.

Hunk of seedlings is the easiest, fastest, and best way according to the Wintersown website. You'll have nice full plants in your garden with abundant blooms. Separating out each little seedling is pain staking, eye straining and brain numbing work. Make it easy on yourself and remember, this is suppose to be fun! (just my 2 cents worth)

HOS worked great for me last year. The only things that I plan to pot up are a few perennials. Last year quite a few of my perennials were overtaken by my jungle garden beds, overflowing with large annuals. I will pot up 1 or 2 of each to hold for fall planting.

Karen

Clump transplanting is sort of halfway between planting out HOS and separating out each little seedling... and it's a wonderful way to get a flat or two of lobelia plants for containers, edging, etc. out of just one little WS container filled with sprouts. For plants like Lunaria, where having a couple of established plants out in the garden would entirely satisfy me, I think I'll just be planting out hunks 'o seedlings.

I'm still a bit confused (not that unusual). I understand about planting out the HOS or the clump method. . . but aren't the seedlings too crowded to produce strong plants, once they start to grow in the soil? Or do they "naturally" separate into the survival of the fittest? I am a newbie to all this.

Yep, I think "survival of the fittest" is part of what WS is all about! With plants that naturally form clumps (yarrow for example), you might get several plants growing close together, but with other plants the tallest/strongest will eventually shade out or otherwise out-compete most of the others. But planting out individual tiny seedlings would really lessen the chance of survivors... I think the larger root system of the HOS is helpful, and I've also heard something about mutual stimulation when you have clumps of seedlings, as if all of them step up their efforts to be number one when they "know" they have competition.

Wait, so if I have a 20 0z soda bottle filled with seedlings, how do I turn that into a flat full? Divide it by clumps into 24 clumps? Sorry to be dense - I didn't used to believe in seeds.

xxxx, Carrie

Yes, that's it exactly Carrie. I think you'll want at least 3 little seedlings in a clump if you're transplanting into a 48 cell flat, and somewhat larger clumps are probably better if you're using 2 or 3 inch pots (not sure how big your pots are at 24 per flat). Hopefully that description I linked to above will make it clear. I can generally get 1 to 2 dozen plants from a 6 inch row of seedlings from one of my seedlings flats, but I sow seed pretty thickly in those rows. If you start separating and potting up little clumps, I think you'll have an idea pretty quickly of how far you can "stretch" your 20 oz soda bottle of plants.

Using some sort of cover or dome on the seedlings after you transplant them might be helpful for providing a little extra humidity while they recover and start growing more roots to utilize all the extra space in their new pots. Clump transplanting WS'd seedlings into little pots outside before planting them out into the garden is a method that's sort of halfway between the usual approach to WSing and the inside methods of starting plants from seed.

Thanks, critter! They don't look too too too crowded yet, well they do but I've used up my heat tolerance for today! And that was a completely hypothetical 24-cell flat, so that's ok.

xxx, Carrie

I plant right into beds instead of potting up. My HOS are probably as large in diameter as a 20 oz pop bottle. I might divide into half of that but 2 hunks would be about the max that I make out of that size piece.

Karen

But Karen, these are NOIDs, and the way they're sowed so thickly, I'm thinking it might be an annual with itty bitty seeds.

xx, C

What are noids?

noid = "no ID"

often used for no-name or lost-tag cultivars, but in this case I'm guessing Carrie's tag got messed up and she has no idea what she's growing in that container. Maybe they aren't lobelia after all. ;-)

Carrie: Have you posted a picture of them? Maybe someone could help with the ID.

If you have the time, patience, and nimble fingers for the potting up thing, good for you. I have none of the above so I generally just stick them in the ground and hope for the best. I had a few last year that never were ID'd. They didn't bloom, I left them in the ground but they died over the winter. I recently pulled just one and examined, found no sign of life, so into the compost they went. Makes room for this year's new babies.

I have 68 jugs sown- no way I'm potting up. Sheesh, I just sowed the last 6 yesterday. Time will be a precious comodity when I have to get these into the ground. The only ones I plan to plant up are maybe a few perennials, 1 or 2 of a type. These I'll hold for fall planting most likely.

Karen