I guess I'd better start my seeds indoors now then, right? If I'm following the information correctly, I should then plan to move these plants outdoors when they're at least half-grown and the temps are within the required range? Or, am I already too late?

Chelle, I think now is a great time to sow Osteos for you. Osteos can handle some low temps, but I would protect them from frost. I would germinate them at warm temps, let them grow for about 2 weeks with room temp and then move them cool when they form their true sets of leaves. So 1 - 2 weeks germination, 1-3 weeks grow room temp and then 2-3 weeks at cooler temps to form flower buds. Cool temp is around 60ºF

Oh, okay. I think I can do that! I thought they'd need the cooler temps after the pinching stage and I wasn't sure if I'd run out of cool weather by that point.

Thank you!

I'll start them tomorrow. You can't know how much this has helped me. I was stuck in a seed starting slump! I couldn't decide which seeds next needed my attention, so I hadn't sowed any at all in the past week.

An entire week I'm starting lobelia now as well, they seem to grow slow at 1st

Yep. A week with no seeding...that's a looooong time!

This makes me think that they might do in a south window in a cool house?
Also I get mixed up with all the "daisy" plants?
Osteospermum is different from dimortheca which is different from? Livingston daisies?

I have "African Daisy" seeds labelled Dimortheca-do they need the cool period too?
And how about the Livingston daisies??? Do they need cool???

In the past I have got the Dimortheca kind to germinate, and flower from a direct outdoor seeding?

...and not to confuse things any further , but I found out mine are Arctotis. Do they need the same growing conditions?

Sorry to be such a pain, Joanne.

Yes, I forgot that I also have Arctosis---and some call them "African Daisy" too???
I have two types of Arctosis:
One is from a Red flowered with silver leaves and the other is a packet of Harlequin series???

Do the Arctosis ones also need a cool period???

Maybe I'll keep the house thermostat at 60ºF and begin the germination under lights where it is warmer and then move them
to the cooler part of the house in a south window.

I need to spend some time sorting all the African Daisy varieties and their growing conditions.

This is an excellent article: http://www.osteospermum.com/di... I think Osteospermums are the only ones mentioned on this thread that need to cool temps to form flower buds,

The difference between:
Dimorphotheca - Annual (propagated by seed) green foliage.
Osteospermum - Perennial (propagated by cuttings) green foliage These are the hybrids sold as bedding plants in early spring, no seed readily available.
Both area type of calendulaea

Arctotis syn. Venidioacrtotis, Venidium: tender perennial, grown as half hardy annual (propagated by seed) silver foliage Blooms summer to fall
Arctotis fastuosa Zulu Prince is easy from seed

Thanks so much, Joanne!

I have a couple of cuttings of osteospermum sitting in my kitchen window and I just realized that they have a couple of buds on them! So, according to this article, that's probably all I'll see off them this year? Or do you think, since my kitchen (surprisingly) stays very cool (ok, so I'm not big on cooking... ) they might continue to develop a few buds? I was going to pinch them back, but since they have buds, no way can I bring myself to do that!

Sounds like a good spot for them. Think of it as one crop of flowers. You will probably have more buds develop over the next month. But once those buds open, the plant probably will not have another flush of blooms. The cool temp will help will more bud production for the flush of blooms. You may want to pinch them now so you get some side branching and keep them cool. Then you flower buds will form in about 4 weeks

Hi Everyone,

I did a bit of research and put together this little blurb for our local garden club.

Joanne, I do hope you'll submit that "blurb" as an article here! Be much easier to copy it off that way!

By the way, I have an Osteo that I have managed to keep alive for several years on my back porch, which I find amazing. I'm generally the kiss of death trying to overwinter anything here. I finally took some cuttings last year (the ones I mentioned earlier in this thread) and the little rascals just bloomed in my kitchen window! Yea!

Great job with your Osteo!

I guess I would need to redo the blurb so it is either about Osteos or about African Daisies if I submit it to ATP

Lots of good information there, tho. It would make a great article, and be more accessible too if you submitted it as an article rather than just stuffing it here in this thread.

If you right click on the article above it will show up in a screen full size then right click on it again and you can save the article to your computer for easier reading.

You actually don't need to right click on it to bring it up full size, just click on each image and it comes up full size, like any other photo. Then you can right click and save it to your computer, as you say. OR, you could just "star" the post so it's easy to find again.
@Joannabanana did you ever get around to submitting this as an article? In your copious free time, that is.

No, just this one. Not a lot of free time
http://garden.org/ideas/view/J...