Hey all

Has anyone ever grown semps from JL Hudson's 'mixed species and varieties' packet, and if so have you been able to identify any of the resulting plants?

I started a packet of them this spring. Excellent germination rate, only took a few days for most of them to germinate when our nights were dipping into the 40s. They are still embarrassingly tiny, got impatient and fed them with full strength fish emulsion and seaweed a few weeks ago which helped them all with their true leaves. Read about Quick Start on here and gave them their first meal of that last week!

Very curious which species and varieties are in the seed mix. wonder if it's actual species or mostly random hybrids.

Hi Paul,

as semps tend to not come true form seeds you will end up with a large assortment of NOIDs even if the mature plants the seeds were collected from were named varieties. Maybe you're lucky and get something worth naming from your seedlings.
Could you post photos of your seedlings and keep us updated on their development?

Hi there, Michael. Sure, here are some pictures. Hard to get good photos because they are still very small, everything grows slowly here. I'll post updates as time goes on. I tend to be good with seeds but getting them to survive long term to maturity in my climate is another matter entirely. Wish me luck!

Looking good! Like mine in April...

Paul and am so sorry. I just now found this thread. Not sure how I missed it.
How are the seedlings doing?

They all died sadly we had a terrific dust storm, and many of the things that I had planted that week ended up snapped/broken or tossed around. When it was over, all the sempervivum seedlings had been buried in dust and sand. Better luck this coming spring hopefully.

I'm sorry to hear that Paul. Have you tried the milk jug method? I use this method for my semp seeds and have never lost any of them. Great protection no matter what your weather conditions are.
http://garden.org/ideas/view/v...

Lynn, thank you for this link! I have never heard of this method, I'm so excited to try it! I am going to print it up and stick it in my garden journal. I usually just place my plant racks under my mulberry trees after I don't have to worry about hard frosts and keep everything covered with bird netting, but I have to constantly check in case the wind has dried anything out. This method sounds so much easier! My father drinks milk like water, I'm going to start having him save the jugs for me.

Paul, I have tried Lynn's milk jug method and it works great. Where I went wrong was after removing the seedlings from the jugs, I was totally responsible for the well-being of the plantlets and fell down on the job.

Once the seedlings are ready to plant out you can cut the top of the jug off and use it over the seedlings. This helps to protect them from drying out so fast.

Paul do keep us updated please (I know it isn't until next year but I will be curious!)
Bev I have exactly that experience with most of my seedlings of anything I plant from seed. They do great while under the covered dome, but I forget to water once they are in their planted out spots and they dry up so fast

Sorry to hear that, Bev. I've had that happen too - especially late spring where we have cool days then suddenly a 90+ day. Two years ago I lost all my seedlings when that happened.

Lynn, do you think this method could work for overwintering young plants too? I have wanted to get some little hybrid lavenders but was afraid to buy them in autumn or winter because of our icy wind and frosts.

Greg, I definitely will! I am pretty excited to try this method. I start most of my seeds around April because of the frost and then it is a race to try and grow seedlings large enough to survive their first hot day and attacks from spider mites. The weeks this will add to my growing season has me ready for cold weather

Paul you could give it a try with may two or three plants and see how it goes. The milk jugs act like mini green houses. If you do this let us know how it worked for you. That would be valuable information to many.
You could start a new thread for the Winter Sow article, that way it would always be available to others that want to try Winter Sowing.