Whew. Rick, did you ever think that you might be overdoing it a little? I open a bag of ProMix, scoop it out, dampen, and sow seeds. Done.

If you tried cheap potting mix in the past, a professional mix might work better for you, be easier and cheaper than buying all that stuff.

If I had to run around and find and buy all that stuff, I'd never sow any seeds.

I think you're really over thinking this. Just use potting mix and don't water. Control yourself!

Karen

>> don't even need to fight the grass trying to grow there.. it just doesn't ...
>> so hard I couldn't even get a shovel in there..

sounds like my clay before I remove it ahnd mix it with 50-75% other stuff. Not even dandilions grow on some of my clay! But two intrepid clover seeds managed to force their way intto it, and produced a big "clover bush" last spring.

>> drainage is very important for WS'ing

I believe it, especially where I have constant rain. That made me try to avoid slits in the covers.

I used to lose 90-99% of seedlings to slugs until I invested in cheap beer and slug bait. That made me fear putting the tubs out on the deck after I drilled drainage holes - I knew the slugs could squeeze into holes. I even tried to keep them away from slugs by keeping them up on a raised proch where rain could wash away the slug biat. But neither did they get sun or fully cold.

I think I need a rain cover so I can ventilate freely, and to keep the rain off the slug bait. That makes me think that I'm really trying to create a seed bed in a cold frame.

BTW, I need so few of each variety, and wnat so many varieties, that my basic WS unit is a square 3.5" pot. I pack many (24?) into each large plastic bin, maybe 16" , 32". I've been using thick milky plastic film with slits as a cover.

I forget if I mentioned here that the 0% success rate with most plants was reversed when I gave up on them and went to throw the soil into an B. Several of the fussy Penstemeon pots had "green perlite", it seemed. Squinting hard, i relaized they were TINY seedlings. 3-4 months later, they are still 1/4" high, maybe 3/8" high if they stand on tip-toe.

After such total failure, one of the hardest things to start that I've tired came thoguh rather well: maybe half the P. varieties germinated, and those that did, had a very high germination rate! Just slower than glaciers.

>> I think you're really over thinking this.
>> don't water. Control yourself!

On both counts, that's like telling a die-hard alcoholic to stop drinking. Not gonna happen. I'm not really joking when I say that I must have some O. Seed D. (OCD)

I usually talk about every gardener having different climates and "practices". I'm also looking for a polite way to say that we are each looney in our own way, and unlikely to change whatever is nearest and dearest to our hearts. Like Frank Sinatra, "I did it my way".

I know fanatic "lasagna" people, and people who firmly believe there is only One True Way to make compost. We all know gardeners in obsessive love with one particular species. Some love their worms so much I wonder if they little worm-vases to display them in. Some till passionately, some no-till passionately. Others collect leaves from the entire county, or ninja-snatch seeds and cuttings from neighbors in the middle of night, or dumpster-dive for abionadonned plants they then have too many of to give away.

Another passion I have is "drainage" of raised and sunken beds in dense, compacted clay. I'm seldom as happy as when I'm knee-deep or waist-deep in a hole, surrounded by rock-hard clay and stones, sweat pouring down, swinging pick and mattock, shovel and hoe.

We all have "our little ways", and I think that's great. Some of those ways may be counter-productive, and maybe some of them aren't as universally cure-alls as we think. Who knows?

I do have to compromise enough with "my preferred ways" that I don't kill the plants. They are usually patient with me, and I do try to accomodate them every way I can, and gradually reform my bad habits.

I did find a professional nursery wholesaler who sells big-name professional mixes, and drove all the way there - they were closed. I should take a day off work and try again.

But where is the stubburn pride in that? I don't want to rely on some company soemwhere to make my soil for me! That seems impersonal. And "cultivating the soil" is actually more my passion than cultivating plants.

Now that I'm a pine-bark-affcianado, price is no object becuase an $8 bag of mulch can last one or more years, and all I have to do is sue restraint when I mix it with "fine stuff".

As to over-watering, for me that is kind of a redundnat pharse, since over-watering is almost the only kind of watering I do. But those who say that you HAVE to ONLY bottom-water or the sky will fall did influence me.

First, I tracked mud in and out of my bedroom.

Then, I clogged the bathtub out-pipe, couldn;t shower for dayss and finally had to call a plumber.

Now, I put some cotton flannel or rayon batting in the bottom of my trays, and have startd to trust that the water will get everywhere it needs to get.

MAYBE for the last few months I have been doing LESS overwatering, but I feel like a junky sayomng "I'm cutting back a lot, really I am!"

I like knowing that their roots are in the airiest, draining-est mix I can make.

you can always add perlite or sand to an inferior mix if need be

Yep, you're overthinking it Rick. The advantage of WSing is supposed to be that it's so easy. And it really is.

You know, we're off topic here. This forum is meant for propagation other than by seeds. Why don't we talk more on the seed forum? Meet you there!

Karen

I have several different plants in water with roots.

whatcha got in there?

Mother in law's tongue , Philodandeum, Some sort of Aroid that has bloomed last 2 years , and a por lil orchid...

Hey Char, I am finally getting back to feeling alive again and the other day a friend of mine from SC send me a care package. Here are some of the cutting she sent me. Besides them, there are a few of my own. This is a shot of my rooting window, but it is so full there are not cuttings on other East windows.

There are Starfish and Sunrise cactus, Camellia Japonica "Grace Albritton", Gardenia radicans, Gardenia aimee, tea rose begonias, and Gardenia frostproof, Jacobs Ladder and
If they all root, I may have to put an extension on the greenhouse unless I sell some Christmas Cactus soon.
Ain't this fun!

Looks like a Devil's backbone plant in there too.
Great collection JB> Glad you feeling better.

That's the other name for Jacob's Ladder so they tell me. Never saw one before. I am so bad about some of these plants, but I am willing to learn.

Honey, as long as we got legs akickin, we are learnin'

Mother-in-Law's Tongue
Snake Plant
Sansevieria trifasciata

Thank you! I think that's my new second-favorite plant name!
But no name can ever equal:

Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate
Persicari orientalis

That is a catchy name
Kiss Me Over The Garden Gate
But I like it too.

I don't grow much that I can't eat, so my lists are always a bit different.

Here are things I root from cuttings:
Peppermint
Basil (Italian)
Tomatoes
Peppers
Rosemary
Stevia

I'm sure the list will grow over time, I'm still a fairly newbie at this gardening thing. Most I root in dirt, but I'll sometimes start in water then move to dirt as soon as I see tiny root-nubs.

I didn't know you could do that with basil! Oooh, gotta go snip off a few cuttings! Wonder if they'll still root this time of year?

I have no idea. I did it in spring because my germination was poor and I wanted more basil plants. Instead of eating the tips I cut off to encourage branching, I rooted them in water with rooting hormone and moved them to dirt as soon as the roots sprouted.

Basil grows like weeds for me. I sprinkle seeds in the garden and get a bunch of plants. All I have to do is water a few times.

Karen

Rick, I'm late answering your question about the salvias and it appears that you have an answer. My LIR salvia didn't seed about freely and the places where it did so were in the crack between the sidewalk and the concrete border of the garden bed she was in, so go figure! I do have a salvia Maraschino that I rooted a cutting of, but it's perennial so I have gobs of it. It's quite lovely, though, and the bumblebees adore it.