Here's a tip! I had some canna seeds I'd saved and those things are round, smooth and very, very hard. I wanted to nick them prior to soaking them, but nothing was working. Then I remembered I have a grinder! A firm grip with the pliers and I had a very small spot abraded through that hard coating. Easy and fast. Maybe I'll be really lucky and nothing will sprout anyway. It's not like I need any more juvenile plants to see after.

I will take seeds like that & hold them in pliers & rub them on concrete to abrade the hull.

needrain said:Maybe I'll be really lucky and nothing will sprout anyway. It's not like I need any more juvenile plants to see after.

I totally understand what you are saying!!

A nail or jewelers file will work to abraid seed coat.

I hold the larger ones (like nasturtiums) with tweezers and just nip the tip off with nail cutters (the grooming kind).

orchidgal said:I hold the larger ones (like nasturtiums) with tweezers and just nip the tip off with nail cutters (the grooming kind).

Like dog nail clippers, Elfie? That sounds like a great idea, I've always just used regular toenail clippers but it doesn't work that well...

I use nail clippers on flatter seeds and it works well. They don't work easily on hard round seeds like the canna seeds. The nice thing about the grinder on those was that it's almost instant. It's really hard to maintain a grip with the pliers on them and keep sanding or abrading the coat. I did only ten seeds in about 3 minutes and put them in a soak. Only eight have swollen. I'll plant them all, but once before when I planted seeds that didn't swell I didn't get any germination and finally gave up and tossed them. I have to plant some Caesalpinia gilliesii seeds which tend to have a hard coat. They are flat and the clippers worked great and after two days I see sprouts coming out the end of the seeds. Getting through the hard seed coats sure speeds up the sprouting process. It's a certainty I'm planting too many things. Then I hate to dump the extras, so I end up with a bunch of little plants that need care.

Locking Vise Grips with the needle nose also works really well to hold Cannas.

I read about, but never tried this:

Glue coarse sandpaper to the INSIDE of matchbox or other container.
Insert seeds, close the container.
Now shake it like a rattle.

The seeds get abraded over their whole surface.

Yes, I meant nail clippers !!!

Seedfork said:Locking Vise Grips with the needle nose also works really well to hold Cannas.

Needle nosed vise grips? Yeah, that'd be a tool that would come in handy. I don't have one. I'm not sure I've ever seen one. Have to look that one up. I've got some long custom shaped tweezers that were given to me for grabbing stamens. I've often wished I could lock the handles in position.

Rick, I think, for canna seeds, that would take a couple of weeks of constant shaking . Those seeds are hard and reluctant to abrade. Would it work for Morning Glory? Aren't those about like canna?

I have a photo, but not a link. They are very crudely made, so they SHOULD be cheap. Harbor Freight? Amazon?



Maybe a "hemostat" would serve as locking forceps or tweezers.
Google "hemostat images".

needrain said:Rick, I think, for canna seeds, that would take a couple of weeks of constant shaking . Those seeds are hard and reluctant to abrade. Would it work for Morning Glory? Aren't those about like canna?

Good point, I never tried them. You could well be right. The closest thing that comes to mind would be coarse sandpaper glued to two hard surfaces, then rub them back and forth with a few seeds between. But they might squirt out and escape like watermelon seeds.

The only Morning Glory I ever planted germinated eagerly with minimal soaking and no grinding: "Star of Yelta".

Never buy cheap vise grips, get the original thing for a a few bucks more. I tried some Sears Craftsman and a few other brands, looked like a tank could run over them and not harm them, but they twisted and warped in no time(not holding seed with them at the time).

I didn't know there WAS a good brand of Vise-Grips.

Rick,

That Morning Glory made for a spectacular photo! So often MGs turn into a weedy problem that I think there must be a good percentage of seeds that germinate without much help. However, the couple of times I wanted a quick vine cover the germination wasn't very good on the plantings where the seeds weren't nicked. Some sprouted, but it was a poor percentage. A redo with nicked seeds corrected that.

Thanks, it kept growing and blooming until the bamboo trellis was sagging in several directions at once.

I don't know why I didn't get volunteers. Seeds that matured in the fall would have rotted before reaching the ground, but there were seeds that matured during the summer. I did turn that bed, but that never kills weed seeds!

Maybe MG seeds don't like soaking wet soil for months on end!

I think that MAYBE letting some seeds age for several years breaks their dormancy. In the case of an impenetrable seed coat, I don't know - conceivably some part of the seed coat turns porous after several years in storage? Pure speculation.

"Maybe a "hemostat" would serve as locking forceps or tweezers."

Great idea, I think hemostats would work perfectly for grabbing small things of all kinds!

If I could combine some hemostat features with the modified tweezers, it would work really well! I'm not willing to give up the general shape of the tweezers, though. I've had them a long time and now just carry them in my pocket along with nail clippers, a pocket knife, a 6' tape measure and a couple of shotgun shells. All garden implements from time to time.