Nickys Nursery (Seeds)

I had good germination on all the seeds that I bought, including the Gloriosa (which is a novelty for Gloriosa and me).

 

http://www.nickys-nursery.co.uk/gar...h/horseshoe-vetch-hippocrepis-comosa-25-seeds

Yikes, £1.39 for 25 seeds + £1.75 P&P, 13p/seed! There's loads of them growing less than 10 miles from me at one of our local Naturalist Trust Reserves. I hope prices like that don't encourage seed thieves.

 

I agree that the seeds are superbly packaged and the overall service is good but am still disappointed that the Cupressus cachmeriana seed I ordered turned out to be something else entirely. The problem with growing trees and shrubs from seed is that by the time you discover the mistake, that's several years down the drain! Ditto for the 'guavas' I've nurtured for five years only for them to flower and turn out to be evergreen privet Bummer!

 

They're only on chalky sites that I know of. Only Kidney Vetch on my soil.

 

That very much depends on how fresh the seed was surely. I may be wrong, but I don't think that a microscope is the best test of viability, especially when it comes to seed from the Fabaceae family which is variable in appearance at the best of times.

That's bad. Surprised that they were in pods still.

No offence, but your experience should have told you that seed from the pea family should not be chipped (unless you want them to rot). Soaked for 24/48 hours yes, but not chipped.

Sums it up really. At just 13 pence per seed they have to trust their suppliers.

And that is the long and short of it isn't it? Most seed sold is "bought in" - there are few seed suppliers who harvest their own seed (certainly not everything in the range at least), so with the best will in the world on the part of the vendor seed germination rates will always be variable.

 

Making it extremely important that any poor germination gets reported.

Other suppliers (who sell by the gramme) state that the seeds are in their pods (as the weight includes the pods), but Nicky's Nursery make no mention of this on their website, as presumably they guesstimate the number of seeds in them and they (or whoever packages the seeds) are not able to see the quality of them.

Perhaps it would be beter if it was made clear on their website about being in pods so you'd know you might be taking a bit of a punt on what was inside them?

 

Unrelated, per se, but I have received packets of seeds (from Chiltern I think) with a sticker on saying something like "We have had reports [or made tests, I forget which] of poor germination and have included extra seeds"

 

FWIW many of the seeds I buy are in packets of "enough seeds to grow some plants" (rather than a crop!) and assuming they aren't incredibly rare then the packet price is £1.50-ish regardless. I buy lots of seeds with 5 or 10 seeds (packet price stays the same), and very few non-standard things that give me a "bucketful" of seed in the packet - exception being, perhaps, things that have seed like dust