Anyone germinate Malvaviscus arboreus, turks cap?

I soaked mine and potted them up and nothing is happening two weeks later. These slow to germinate? Just wondering if anyone has any pointers?

I'm curious how you got yours to set seed in the first place...I've been growing these for several years now and honestly I've never seen a seedpod!

I didn't soak my seeds, but just planted them in pots. It took mine between 3 and months to come up. Mine didn't start to sprout until the temps got consistantly in the high 70's and eighties day and night. Even then it was uneven germination.

About the time I ready to give up on them they poped there heads up. Now I just plant em and water when I water everythin else, but generally just ignore them to get them to grow.

Ecrane.. Sorry hit the send button and forgot about your question. If you want them to set seed best way is to get out there with q tip and hand pollinate some of them yourself if you don't have butterflies and hummers and bees to do the job.

Gather the pollen on the q-tip and then gently go aroudn and pollinate the plants. If ya don't have a slew of the plants it hard to get some to germinate. The seeds are inside the tiny fruit they make and a bear to dig out.

That's what I suspected. I do have hummers all over mine constantly but have still never seen seeds. The reason I asked is that someone on another forum had asked about it, and I knew I'd never seen seeds on mine so I figured they might be one that you need to hand pollinate.

I had a few seeds I WS them I'm hoping that will work I just did sow them the other day :)

Maybe one day if I have my camera with me can get a pic of the lady down and around the bend in the road, she has one whole section of her fron t yard covered with Turk's Caps and it a site to see when they all in full bloom and covered with butterflies.

They travel underground and she using them to hold back her hill and they just go to town every year.

Well looks like I'll just put the turks cap outside and let them pop up when ever they feel like it. My back up plan is to take a drive by cutting, down in Savanah GA, I live close to there and I know where a full size turks cap is. I really didn't pay attention till last year but downtown Sav. has many odd, fairly rare plants here and there. I don't know about rare but you'll have a hard time tracking some of these down if you want to buy one. I wish i could remember where a certian camellia is. It was really nice looking but I can't remmebr which square it was in. Oh well.

BTW is there a law against taking cuttings from public places?

CoreHHH,Like everything else,it's only illegal if you get caught!Edge

Looks like 4 weeks to germinate. One popped up yesterday and another today. I put them outside and we've had a couple days near 80 so that might have something to do with it.

Oh, I hope mine germinate, good going CoreHHI :) I WS mine the 17th of March but it's not as warm here yet it is getting to 70 Sunday they say but don't think that will last long lol I was in a big swap that had some old seeds so I'm just hoping they are good!

Core..... Good for you ^_^ but just don't overwater them. They go in the class of small shrubs and shrubs don't like lots of wet feet. Don't let them dry out either completely, but let them get some air into their pots besides all water.

Oh man Star, my jugs have been getting a lot of water it's been raining here so much I sure hope mine sprout!

Your haven't germiated yet though have they Bug? The rain now should just help in germination of them.

If after the temps and the soil get rela and high and real warm and if yoru s don't germinate, holelr at me I got more seed.

This message was edited Apr 5, 2008 10:39 AM

That's what I was hoping Star, that seed coat is so hard it will have to soak in that wet dirt for a while to germinate, I really would like to see these plants I've never seen them before.

I got the seed from Suzy so not sure if they were older seeds from Weez or Carol but they weren't in a pack like they usually have just one of those envelopes with the name on them so not sure how old they are, I don't think they were Suzy's but they may have been from an older trade for her, anyway we'll see if the germinate, thanks for the offer :)