But I DON'T WANT to!

I have several flats of perennials and annuals that were planted by the kids. The problem is they were a little heavy handed with the seed. Several of the little 1" cells have 3-5 seedlings in them.

I don't want to thin them! It kills me. I am wondering if I would kill them all if i tried to tease them apart. The idea is beyond ridiculous, the whole thing is really. I am going to have to move the 1" cells to 4" pots because planting has been put off till early July.

Should I be ruthless and pull out all but one, or try to save them all at the cost of possibly killing all of them?

Naw, you won't kill them. When it's time to put them in bigger pots, just pull them apart and they'll be fine. I do it all the time. I would say that as soon as you get a flat of 4" pots finished, put them in bright shade for 2 or 3 days and water them. Oh, and try to keep as much soil with each one as possible....a little tricky because usually the smallest one will have the least amount of soil clinging to the roots.

Suzy

Suzy is right if you planted the seeds in soil. You can separate them easily when they get a bit bigger.

From the sound of the 1" cells, may be you are using special germiation substrates or peat/foam blocks. If you are doing that, do not pull them out or tease them apart. It will die. In my case, I use bio-degradable foam and peat pellets in my germination kits. I noticed that if I wait until they are bigger (like more than 2 true leaves), I can **cut** them apart with sissors or a knife and just plant the separate seedlings with along with the medium they were planted in. I just make sure they are well watered (with proper drainage).

Thanks Suzy and lcosden for your advice,

They are in 72 cell starter flats growing in potting soil. I've successfully taken apart a few, and am in the process of finding 4" containers to pot them up into.

One more tip - I used to put a block of seedlings into a saucer of warm water that came up about 1/3 the height of the soil. After it absorbed the water, I would "float" the seedlings apart. I always had pretty good success that way - the roots were not as damaged that way when being separated.

Thanks for the tip!

I'll give that a try with some of the more crowded ones.

Some seedlings do really well being transplanted in clumps... especially anything that grows in a clumped or multi-stemmed fashion as it matures anyway... I always clump transplant things like basil, alyssum, dianthus, and even perennials like columbine or echinacea seem to like growing this way. I posted some things that Tom DeBaggio (noted herb guru) wrote about clump transplanting here, http://davesgarden.com/forums/t/589725/.

I get clumps of seedlings all the time and have to separate them. What I do is gently pull on the outside one, while holding the outside one on the opposite side. One of them is going to pull apart from the clump. Just keep doing it until you are left with one.
They transplant fine by doing it this way! Sometimes, if they are rooted well, it helps to gently massage the bottom of the clump as well, before or while you are pulling the outside one.
With a bigger clump, I just rip the clump in two, or three and then do the above steps. Its also better to wet down the soil before you start to pull them apart

I separate seedlings by pulling them apart dirt and all and have not lost seedlings doing it. The other day I separated some costmary seedlings that had formed one big root ball. I had to really rip those apart. They are fine. OTOH, I too have left seedlings together to grow into a clump. Sometimes this looks nicer because it looks you have a very full plant. I have noticed, though, that seedlings left in clumps do not ever get as big or make as big flowers as seedlings that are separated and given their own space.

That may vary with the plant... I potted up some small clumps of heliotrope (maybe 3 seedlings in each 2 inch pot) and also potted up some individual ones... none are big enough to bloom yet, but the ones that were clump transplanted are larger and more vigorous looking... With some plants, I think the stimuation of other nearby plant roots spurs them to greater efforts.

That's an interesting idea, critterologist. It does seem that some plants really enjoy growing en masse and others don't.

It's not my own idea... I read it "somewhere" LOL... and I think there's some fancy phrase to describe the notion that competition from nearby roots stimulates growth in seedlings... If I find the reference, I'll post it! :-)

I read it somewhere, too, "Mutual Stimulation" was the term in the headline of the article -- I did a doubletake. I thought the artcile I read referred to not competetion of roots, exactly, but more like coziness. Sort of like the old adage about putting a plant in a pot the next size up inside of three sizes up, even tho you know it will eventually get that big.

Suzy