Seedling Madness!

Hi All,

My name's Rory and I'm new to this forum. I've been a keen on the garden for a long time but after spending a small fortune each year on annuals and bedding plants I decided to have a go at growing from seed this year. Being in the north isles it's quite a challenge weather wise, and not having a greenhouse means the spare room (with a west facing bay window) has been turned into a growing room! At least I've cleared out the shed and have a functional "potting shed".

So far everything has been a great success, just about everything I've planted has germinated and survived transplanting from trays to cells. I've tried to pick plants that I know do well in my garden: alyssum, antirrhinum, petunia, marigold, nasturtium, sweet pea, lobelia, pansy, viola, californian poppy, aster, stock and gazania to name a few...

About half of them are in the process of being hardened off and the marigolds even have buds now. As you can imagine there are an awful lot of trays of seedlings in the house, shed and cold frame! It's a lot of work every morning and evening putting everything out and in but hopefully will be worth it and it certainly is very rewarding fun!

I need a little bit of advice though... I sowed the gazania (only 27 seeds in the packet) along with some left over viola in the heated propagator before we went on holiday in early May. The gazania needs dark to germinate but as they both had similar germination times I wasn't expecting them to have sprouted before we returned 8 days later. Well both the gazania and the viola had (and the viola have gone very leggy - I'm not too worried about them as I have plenty more already growing). My concern is the gazania seem to have stopped growing with just their seed leaves, about 1 - 2 inches high. Two went brown so I removed them but the other 25 are green and erect. They've been uncovered since Sunday but still in the warm (off the heat though - in the bathroom!), should I not have expected a bit of growth in the last few days? And will "leggy" seedlings recover if I prick them out and plant them a bit deeper?

Just realised I've written rather a lot so I'll sign off and go and put the seedlings to bed!

Happy gardening

 

I would bury the stem until the leaves are just poking through the compost and hope for the best. Welcome to the forum

 

Pogs - Welcome to the forum.

I wouldn't worry too much. I have never grown Gazania and don't know what their seeds look like. But some plants, with a reasonable sized seed, will make a great spurt and then stop for a while. I think the reason is that in a large seed there is plenty of food, and this allows the seedling to shoot up, without any aid from soil or photosynthesis. However when that is used up it has to start photosynthesising its own food - its called a reality check.

Congratulations on your success in growing from seed. I find it very satisfying - as well as cheaper than buying plants.

 

I've not grown Gazania either, but plenty of the seeds that I grow do nothing/very little for ages after germinating. Those ones tend to put down a lot of root in that time interval.

Runner Beans on the other hand ... :D

All seeds (may be some exceptions, I can;t think of any) can be buried up to their seed leaves when pricked-out, so that will solve the leggy-ness, although being leggy may weaken them such that they succumb and snuff-it, thus best avoided. Put some tinfoil behind them (if they are on a windowsill) so they get some light from behind which will help stop them grow leggy / lean towards the light.