Growing giant allium from seed

Hi everyone,

I had a go this year at growing a few different kinds of giant allium from seed I collected last year. I saw some advice online saying to germinate them in a deep pot as they don't like being moved, so I put the seeds on the surface of a deep pot of soil- some covered with grit, some a thin layer of soil, some nothing.

In general, germination seemed really good, possibly better with the grit but good across the board. Loads of little seeds grew to being about 3 inches tall, but they never grew any leaves at all- just a thin, straight green stalk. Some of them still had the black seeds on top of the stalk, but not all of them.

Recently though, they're all starting to die off. Some are keeling over and disappearing, some are yellowing and withering. Not a single one has grown a leaf. I've been keeping them outside, so hopefully they haven't dried out or got too hot.

Could they have got scorched in the sun? Too wet? Should I have tried transplanting them to their own pots? I'm really stumped and not sure what to do next. It'd be such a shame to lose all of them. Does anyone have any advice?

Thanks in advance!!
Heather

 

http://apps.rhs.org.uk/advicesearch/Profile.aspx?pid=316

Never tried from seed myself, but thinking of the natural growth cycle of the plant, it does die back about this time of year.
Keep the pots in a safe place and see if they come back next year.

 

Hi Heather. As Pamsdish said this is perfectly normal. In fact the little green stalks were their first leaves, which are now dying down. This is the same cycle that daffs and tulips go through - except that your Alliums are still too small to flower.

Once the green stalks/leaves have disappeared, if you want you could empty the pot out and you would find loads of tiny white bulbs no bigger than a small pearl. Stick them back in the pot and cover with compost and next year they will repeat the process and send up little green stalks again and you will end up with larger bulbs. However they do take a long time. Even after 4 years my Allium christophii bulbs still hadn't flowered - so I have now buried them in the border and have forgotten about them - but they will flower in time.

 

As stated above, Alliums are monocots so the single embryonic leaf is normal.
When did you start them out of interest?

 

Thanks everyone! Really helpful. I had no idea that the green stem thing was actually the leaf, or that they'd die back at this time of year- I was expecting the black seeds to fall off the top and some little leaves to poke out the top!

I'll keep them in the pots and see how many come up next year- fingers crossed. The cat digs up the garden though so I'd better not put them in the borders til they're big. I was so pleased that so many seedlings actually germinated, and so fast too- within a few days from when I sowed them- I didn't have very high hopes initially! It always amazes me when things grow from seed from something as awesome as giant allium.

Longk, I'm not entirely sure when I started them. It was definitely this side of Christmas, and they had already germinated when there was all that snow. Maybe Feb-ish? I should really write stuff down!

Thanks again
Heather