First brugmansia in my life germinated :))

This is what I saw last night:


I hardly expected it, as it's only 11 days from sowing! Being a novice at seeds, I see it as a good sign for my entire season and believe it'll go healthy, smooth, prolific and rewarding.

I've never grown brugmansia so far and I never thought of having one, but PeterS is to blame :WINK1: as he outperformed himself on both seed supplies and comprehensive advice. (Great thread!)

Millions of thanks, Peter! May you have a tsunami of flowering this season (for the benefit of all)!

 

Yes well done Angelina, not something I've ever grown, well not from seed anyway.

 

Thanks Angelina - I am delighted to see that it has germinated.

I think this is a really fun time of the year. My first batch of seedlings are doing well. So the day before yesterday I emptied my light box and sowed another 20 small pots of seed - including some Ipomea and Thunbergia that Angelina has kindly sent me as well as many seeds from other friends on GC.

The exciting part is coming down each morning and looking to see what has germinated since the day before. First of the new batch, this morning, are some Amaranthus - just 2 days after sowing. But there are 19 more pots to go. :D

 

I'd be inclined to keep the seed case, (which has come out of the soil), moist.
They can dry out, when they do that, and stop the correct formation of the cotyledons.

If its in a propagator for the next few days it should be OK.

 

Thanks, Pete.

I was not aware. By what you say I assume that the seed coat had to be broken by now, which it isn't, regardless of preliminary soaking.

I have no propagator. Until yesterday the seeds were closed tightly in the box, but the lid is flat, and this little enthusiast would be banging its head in the 'ceiling' :D, so I removed it.

All I could think of was spray slightly, bend two drinking straws and wrap it in stretch film. It's in a room and temperature varies between 18-22 degrees. Hope this helps preserve humidity:

Peter, the ipomoea germinates easily and grows quite vigorously even without a light box. Actually, last year I started it outdoors in pots, in early May. You will probably have it flowering by that time. However, seeds take incredibly long to ripen.
Keep us up-to-date, you add such an adventurous spirit to it.

JWK, simbad, glad you liked it. I like it twice as much, I check it every two hours... (as if it were supposed to bear apples in the meantime )

 

Soaking was for the beenfit of the seed, tog et it to take up water, and thus start germination. After that the seed coat may remain moist whilst still in teh soil, but will dry out once above ground (maybe it has a function to protect the seed leaves, but it seems fairly suicidal as an evolutionary "benefit" to me!). Once dry the seed leaves will never break free from it, and the plant won't be able to get the next set of leaves out, and then ... Game Over !!

Spray it to keep it moist is probably best. You could try to gently remove it, but that approach often ends in tears I'm afraid, as the stem is easy to break - and that outcome is definitely Game Over!!

FWIW I remove the "corky" seed coating on Brugs before sowing them. Its a fiddly job with a scalpel, but I think it helps.

"bend two drinking straws and wrap it in stretch film. It's in a room and temperature varies between 18-22 degrees. Hope this helps preserve humidity"

It looks the Biz to me !!

 

Thank you Kristen, I'll keep it moist and watch if it splits open at some point.
Then I'll help it fall off (without being brutal).

 

Keep us posted on its progress Angelina!

PeterS can be blamed for a lot of things!
I popped some of his Leonotis seeds in and they started germinating in a couple of days - he said that they would benefit from an early sowing!

 

Well done Angelina,
You will now be joining the mad Brugmansia growers .. They are adictive lso be warned ..

Dave

 

Well done Angelina, growing anything from seed; for me anyway is addictive, growing something from scratch ~ "it gives me a sense of enormous well being" :D

I've also sown some of Peter's 'Brug' seeds (thanks Peter ) about 5 days ago, so still waiting for germination....

 

I'm afraid the brug is dead. It grew a bit taller, with the corky part still on. I did spray, but only yesterday did the seed coat feel brittle enough for me to remove. The apex leaves are a Y-shape, which looks brown and... genuinely rotten.

The seeds in the other cells give no visible signs of life yet.
Of course, I have some seeds to start a second set. When I do, I'll try to scratch off as much of this cork shell as possible.
Kristen, thanks for alerting me!

 

Hard luck Angelina - I have still got some more seeds if you run out.

I did an experiment last year with a) unsoaked Brug seeds, b) soaked (24 hours) seeds, and c) soaked and cork removed seeds. I put them all in plastic bags - which has been mentioned of another thread. The soaked seeds with cork and without cork germinated after the same time, which was quite a bit quicker than the unsoaked seeds (which is quite logical).

I have always grown my seedlings in a covered propagator which tend to keep the moisture level up and the cork soft. So haven't had a problem. But it pretty easy to remove the cork beforehand and worth doing.

 

Planting deeper stops the seed coat sticking.
In nature the seedling would extract its cotyledons from the seed, leaving the husk in the soil.
Its when the seed coat is drawn out of the soil and dries out that the problems occur.

 

It's OK, thank you. I have bought some additional packets of seed (successfully disguised under the name of 'datura arborea').

Great advice, Pete! I'll soak, scratch the cork off and plant deeper next time. I will also place them in one of the better boxes, because the stretch film seems to let some of the humidity and heat out...

This one played a bad joke on me. But planting something so new and having only one seed germinate is really teasing (I can't give it up at this point). And the dead seedling, by the way, had an amazingly long root.

Probably the title of the thread should change to: Requiem to the first germinating brugmansia in my life, but... there's always a second one.