Germinating Pancratium maritimum seed

Does anyone have any experience of germinating Pancratium maritimum seed?
I received some before christmas and have been googling it, but the advice is very conflicting. One fairly common requirement is sea sand which is a bit rare here in rural Oxfordshire - will ordinary unwashed building sand be ok? I would assume that would still be slighlty salty.

 

Longk , I`ve pick few 2 years ago on the beach back in Italy as they grow wild everywhere , but be honest with you they still alive in the greehouse but didn`t move a lot , they need more hot climate to flowering ....I was thinking that they need a bit of salt in the water ...has as far as I know even peoples in a hot climate don`t manage to make them flowering , maybe the salt is the key , but not sure ....if I will remember I will make few pictures of mine .

btw look what a beauty grow in the rubbish over there ...shame i didn`t pick any bulbs do you know what variety it is ?

 

Growing the Pancratium is supposedly fairly easy here. Grow in a tomato pot with a soil/sand mix below and sand on top. Heat is apparently less of an issue according to those that grow them over here.



It looks like Amaryllis belladonna Sal. Borderline hardy here.

 

I've grown Pancratium and don't remember needing special compost or sand/soil mix. If you do use sand though, longk, sharp sand would be a better bet, or use a mix with horticultural gravel or perlite.

 

Building sand is unlikely to contain salt and is probably not a good growing medium.
Silver sand is similar to the type of sand that forms dunes on beaches.

Cant help on the plant though, never grown it.

 

I'm just going on what I've been told by people growing it in the UK. You're the first to have grown it from seed though so I'll take your advice.

Thanks Pete.

 

Good luck, longk I'm sure the freshness of the seed is more important than the medium. After germination, that's something else.....if you could give me some tips on how to get seedlings of anything moving post-germination, I'd be very grateful

 

These are very fresh!

The one thing that I have learnt is (on the whole) to respect their natural growing season. The tricky bit is to work out how that translates to our conditions when the plants are a long way from home!
Also, multi purpose compost is good for the easy stuff, but a lot of the time it needs adding too. My nemesis seems to be members of the Iris family from SA and Australia - they just seem to stall and die on me.

 

Ah, there's the rub..as you say, they're a long way from home! Strange, though, even relatively european plants seem to germinate OK here and then don't put on respectable growth. I'm going to try bunging everything in the polytunnel in 2014. It's amazingly frost-free in the winter and as long as I move the plants out before it gets too hot, they should be OK. We don't have any excuses now, do we, with the wealth of info on natural growing conditions?

 

My gut feeling is that it's an issue with potting mix As I said, I struggle with the Iris family but on my last sowing (Dietes) I appear to have made progress with a different mix - all six germinators in the same spot, but three different mixes of soil. First two died (same mix), second two struggled on and then died (different mix) and two have romped away (in what is now referred to as "ultimate mix").

Nope! Non whatsoever! And the wealth of other growers experience too via forums.

 

Good moaning So what does your ultimate mix consist of, longk?

 

Home made compost (or bought MPC), grit, vermiculite and bean bag filling (I used to use perlite but the bean bag filling is cheaper). Mix varies depending on what I'm potting up. For larger plants I add slow release fertiliser and maybe water retention gel granules, for young plants I may add beneficial bacteria (it seems to make a difference).

 

Thanks for that! It looks as though drainage is the key. I'm going to experiment with sterilised topsoil, sterilised FYM, sharp sand and tiny polystyrene balls with balanced liquid feed. Hopefully it'll stop the sciarid flies too...

 

As is the ability to get an unrestricted and free root run.

Ideal for germinating seed, but I tend not to sterilize beyond that stage.

Gotta ask - what is that?

You know the shaped polystyrene packing that you get in boxes with fragile items? Break it up into 30mm'ish bits to store - it can then be added to the bottom of pots or crumbled up between the palms of your hands and added to potting mixes.

 

Sorry, FYM = farmyard manure. I was being polite There's a gert big heap next to the veggie plot but it's full of weed seeds. (So much for heat killing them off).
Luckily, I've got a big bag of bobbles left over from making lightweight concrete lintels. Ideal replacement for perlite, they're sterile and won't soak up water!