So my season is starting with seedlings coming up. In 2022, I made my first cross Sergey x Aristocracy. I got 28 seeds. 4 came up last year and have grown and increased so I hope to see some blooms this year. I decided to leave the unsprouted seeds in their pots, and what do you know, 5 more are coming up!
Last year, I made a number of crosses. Unfortunately, I had already planted a bunch of seeds before Brad told me to soak the seeds for 2 weeks before planting. Of the pots with the soaked seeds, I see a few shoots. Nothing in the others yet. Sorry, no pictures because the effort is not photogenic at this point. Keep those beautiful pics coming.
4/29 update - a lot of little sprouts popped up since yesterday, all in the pots with the seeds I soaked per Brad's advice. These are 2 crosses:
Haunted Heart x Aristocracy
and
Reckless Abandon x Clotho's Web
The first cross was planned. The second was an off the cuff thing. I was crossing Haunted Heart w /Clotho's web (those are in the unsoaked pots and haven't sprouted so far). This is a replication of a cross Paul Black made that resulted in this cultivar. I wanted to see what would happen
Reckless Abandon is next to Haunted Heart and it had a nice flower and I had pollen in my hand. I only had one that one pod, and whaddya ya know, it's got some energetic seedlings, raring to go. Can't even image what the flowers might like.
So what I've learned so far: keeping pots for a second year is effective. I have more sprouts this year from that cross than from the first year, thus more chances to get something I like. Thanks for that advice! And yes, pre-soaking before planting definitely increases germination if you are direct planting seeds and not doing the refrigerator method.
Monty! 
