Tempted yet again!

To add to my already vast collection of seeds:
Echium Collection

Echium fastuosum


Delphinium x cultorum Tall Black Knight

Delphinium Duo

Delphinium hybridum Pagan Purples


Delosperma floribunda Stardust- these are supposed to be scented:


Allium christophii Star Of Persia

Aquilegia x hybrida Green Apples

Aquilegia x hybrida Roman Bronze


Cress : Water Cress

All from T&M's half price sale. Nothing really exotic, but I am so cross at my delphiniums being eaten yet again that I am going to try them in containers where I can see any sluggy predators better.
I shall start the delphinium seeds off as soon as they arrive, also the aquilegias. I'm getting overrun with dark purple single and tiny pink doubles, so will uproot some and replace with new varieties. I already have a free packet of Mckana hybrids, and small [scented ] white ones started.
Any plants over [I won't set all the seeds, I have to think of my collection ] can go to the garden fete next year.

[ 24. June 2007, 12:53 PM: Message edited by: Liz ]

 

Liz - they look good fun. I am having my second go at Delphiniums with little success. The slugs can eat them faster than they can grow.

Allium christophii, I think is lovely - the best of the Alliums. The last year or two, I had a few (from bulb) and there were nice. But last year I bought more bulbs (I had trouble in getting the seeds to germinate) and made a large clump. They are far more impressive in a mass than just as individuals.

When you have grown all those - there are an awful lot more plants out there to try. :D

 

I would not start off Allium chrstophii just yet. if I remember correctly is is a cold germinater. Will look it up to check.

 

Just had a look at the T and M web site. Neither Allium christophii or Echium fastuosum are biennials, they are perennial. Echium fastuosum forms an evergreen shrub. I keep mine in a 20 litre pot. Echium pininana grows for 2 years and in the third summer after sowing should produce its flower spike after which it dies. Echium seed germinates fairly quickly, certainly faster than what T and M say. I would be interested in your experience of germinating their seed.
I was sent seed of Echium pininana by another seed firm last summer and have bought that and Snow Tower this summer. In both cases germination was fast and excellent. However last summer I kept surplus seed over and sowed it earlier. The seed did not age well and there was no germination from the stored seed.
Did you see the pictures I posted the other week of my Echium fastuosum in flower? That is some flower. My supplier said it would produce seed if the bumble bees were on it. Well the bumble bees are nver off it. So hopefully i will get seed this summer. i must have the bug bad if I am keen not to just to get the flowers but to get the seed harvest afterwards. Sad or what?

 

That Echium fastuosum is fabulous Geoffhandley and I did see the pics last week. Is it best to sow seed fresh in the Autumn, and do you think you might have any spare :D

 

Yes, I saw the pictures,very lovely, that was what inspired me!
I thought Geoff will have a lot of demand if he gets seed and although the Welsh plant place sounds lovely it's quite a way. And the seed was half price....
PeterS you can see I didn't get very far through the alphabet before I'd spent quite enough even at half price!
I've been looking throughthe Special seeds site again as well, so many unusual things, so little money and space!

 

Liz. - I think that we ought to get ourselves organised somehow with seed. With a number of interested people we ought to be able to muster a lot of different seed from our own plants.

For instance, the year before last I collected a lot of Allium christophii and A. hollandicum seed (being big - its so easy to collect) as well as lots of other stuff, and ended up throwing nearly all of it away.

The problem is that, like most people, I have so many plants I cannot collect seed from everything on the off chance - but I would be delighted to collect seed of something that somebody really wanted. Perhaps we could publish lists of plants we have (ie potential seed sources) and take orders.

 

I would sow the Echiums in spring. They are on the border line of hardiness so i would not want to nurse seedlings through the winter. The seed is Ok the following spring, its less than 12 months old. I wonder whether if it gets older than that it tends to die.
I do have some interesting plants that produce seed. I have the Dicentra scandens which is a climbing bleeding heart which is yellow. This year I am hoping to get seed of a bulb called Cypella herbertii cause I cannot buy the seed from anywhere and I want to produce more plants. My customers at the market will go nuts over that one.

 

The T & M site says the Echium fastuosum's seeds are only �£1.14 and that they can be sown Jan - June, so I will send off for some and sow them now. I can over-winter them in a cold frame maybe?
The seeds may not keep until next spring as I don't know how long they have had them.

The Cypella herbertii looks interesting. Pic here

http://www.ubcbotanicalgarden.org/potd/2005/08/cypella_herbertii.php

 

Geoffh, I am now in a quandary as to whether to sow the Echium seed and keep in the monster propagator over winter or chance the seed not being viable next spring, as I don't know when it was produced. Might have to email T&M.

PeterS, a seed sale/exchange would be a great idea if enough people are interested. We would need to think about postage costs as many people are very generous but couldn't be expected to send out lots of seeds without payment. Also needed would be guidelines on collection and storage, labelling and parentage etc.
As I cannot find a gardening society round here I would be very interested, although I don't have a lot of interesting plants.
In the exchange section people do offer seeds but I don't think response has been enormous.

 

Just a word on the echium Liz, I find its not very hardy at all, but having said that a cold greenhouse should be OK in one of our normal winters these days.
Mine had a large display of flower buds last winter until one single night of minus 5 wiped the lot out, it also killed off a large number of stems.
I think I would sow now and hope to get a reasonable sized plant to overwinter in the greenhouse.
They grow pretty fast.

 

My Echiums were in the cold greenhouse last winter. When we had that cold spell I dragged all the pots into the conservatory for a few days. They were in 10 litre pots in John Innes. They are all now in 20 litre pots so you test your muscles. One tip - don't pot them up using peat based compost. I potted them into peat based compost last summer for the first potting and i lost a few with a type of rot round the base of the stem. This year i have loads of Echium pininanas in 1 litre pots and what i think is Echium webbii and they have been OK despite all this rain and this time I only use John Innes.

 

Thanks both for the tips, I think I'll sow as soon as they come. I have a trolley for carting large pots up and down the garden to the greenhouse, and I'm keeping the greenhouse frostfree in winter so hopefully all will be well.

 

Thanks geoff and pete, I too will sow them as soon as. My Snow Towers are doing well in multipurpose with added sharp sand, so far....

 

I must say that I've not come across the neck rot that you describe Geoff, but I tend to use JI with some grit because its heavier and it doesn't seem to give that mad burst of growth followed by starvation that multi purpose does.
I tend to use MP early on though.