I have just come across this plant which I find has several varieties.
I would like to hear how you grow it as I have ordered seeds.
From searches, I see that Chelle has done the involucrata one as a winter sow?
Would the Bushii one also be a WS candidate? And how about the other varieties?
Thanks in advance,---- on what you have experienced with these plants.

I haven't grown any of the others, Caroline, but I'd say winter sowing would be a good bet for Bushii, at least.

"Plant Bush's Poppy mallow seeds outside in a prepared bed in summer/fall for germination the next spring. When planting Callirhoe bushii seeds germination may be improved with scarification. Bush's Poppy Mallow seeds have a hard outer shell covering a small hard bean shaped seed. Scarify by rubbing seeds hard between 2 sheets of coarse sandpaper."
http://www.easywildflowers.com...

Great advice Chelle, and thank you for the link I didn't know about that company.

I usually winter sow my seeds in pots, easier to keep track of them when you only have a few.
For seeds the are hard to sprout I like to give them the boiling water treatment. Put the seeds in a cup and pour boiling water over them, let them soak for at least 24 hours and then plant, it works quite well, although it may seem a bit harsh, of course nothing is ever guaranteed, especially when it comes to germination.

Good ideas and that site! Thanks.

I'll certainly be checking it out thoroughly once the season slows down. It looks pretty interesting.

I noticed that they offer plants of Arisaema triphyllum Jack-in-the-Pulpit, but not seeds. I wonder why? Maybe because they need multiple warm/cold periods to germinate? Our huge plants are full of seeds now; it might be fun to see if I can start some purposefully.

Bulbs seem to be sold.

The supplier of the callirhoe bushi recomends pouring boiling water over seeds and soaking.

I do that to a lot of my seeds and it works great!!

Caroline, the usual recommendation for hard seed coats like Callirhoe is to scarify - this is easily done by rubbing seeds against a flat file. In very, very informal comparisons (just discussions in the seed-starting threads at the NARGS site), scarifying hard-coated seeds seems to give the fastest germination, and after the seeds have been scarified, it didn't seem that soaking had any additional benefit towards speeding up germination. (Note, it would be great if someone did an controlled study of this... so much of this stuff is anecdotal, including my comment, admittedly. Anyway, I believe in doing as little messing around as possible... )
Alplains sells C. bushii and recommends scarifying. Alan Bradshaw's advice is usually excellent.

Thanks if I remember I should try two lots.
One hot water and one rubbed on sandpaper.