I'm so proud to welcome their first child into the world! More should be popping up soon, and I can't wait to see what they look like and how they grow. So much beauty and anticipation packed into a tiny speck of green!
Showing posts with label growing from seed. Show all posts
Showing posts with label growing from seed. Show all posts
29 January 2012
Baby picture!
What's cuter than a baby picture?
Aw.... the widdle cutie pie! Sooooo sweet!
Here's the proud mama, the daughter of the first hybrid I ever made, a cross between the wonderful native US swamp rose, Rosa palustris and a beautiful rugosa rose hybrid called 'Apart'. She's an incredibly tough little lady, a vigorous, incredibly thorny bush that laughs at disease and, thanks to the fact her grandmother lived in a bog, thrives in heavy, poorly drained clay soil. In contrast to her tough-as-nails constitution, all summer long she unveils these delicate, fragrant, exquisitely crafted flowers that I adore.
This is the daddy, the classic, and classy, rose 'Golden Wings' one of my favorites with pale yellow blooms on a large, vigorous bush.
I'm so proud to welcome their first child into the world! More should be popping up soon, and I can't wait to see what they look like and how they grow. So much beauty and anticipation packed into a tiny speck of green!
I'm so proud to welcome their first child into the world! More should be popping up soon, and I can't wait to see what they look like and how they grow. So much beauty and anticipation packed into a tiny speck of green!
10 August 2011
Go ahead, save seeds from your hybrid tomatoes!
Everyone knows you can't save seeds from hybrid varieties. It is practically the first thing you learn as about seed saving. Too bad it isn't true. Not only can you save seeds from a hybrid tomato and many other vegetables and flowers, the result will usually be something you'll like better than the hybrid you started with.
F1 hybrid varieties were first created because they have hybrid vigor, which is just another way of saying that they aren't inbred. Inbreeding, as we all know, isn't a good thing, generally resulting in unhealthy individuals. That's why we don't marry out sisters and why purebred dogs don't live as long as mutts. F1 hybrid varieties are a way to bring the health of mutts to a uniform variety. (How that works).
In the plant world, however, things are a little different. Some plants, like corn, are called outcrossers and act like us and dogs. Their flowers are set up in a way to maximize the chance that they get pollinated by another, hopefully unrelated, plant. These types of plants show very strong inbreeding depression, so hybrid varieties are significantly more vigorous than an inbred equivalent. Other plants, including tomatoes, peppers, beans, and lettuce, are selfers. Rather than working hard to get the wind or bees to carry their pollen to another flower, they just self pollinate, naturally inbreeding in the most extreme way possible. As a result, their genomes have adapted to tolerate inbreeding, meaning hybrids varieties don't show significant increase in vigor.
Why then, hybrid tomato varieties? Why do seed companies go to all the effort of hybrid seeds when a inbred variety would work just as well? Simply put, because you “can't save seeds from them.” Introducing hybrids is a way for plant breeding companies to protect their varieties from other companies taking what they've created. Since 'Early Girl' is a hybrid, the only way to produce more 'Early Girl' seeds is to have access to the two parent plants used to create it, parent plants that you can bet Burpee is very careful no one else is ever going to get ahold of.
When you save seeds from a hybrid variety like 'Early Girl', you'll get a range of different plants, none will be exactly the same as 'Early Girl' itself. Fruits will be a little bigger or smaller, sweeter or tarter, everything will differ to some degree. However, the traits you saw in the F1 parents plant will be essentially the C average for what you'll see in next generation. Despite the variability, it usually isn't hard to select out a plant that is very similar to the hybrid variety you liked so much.
It is even easier, though, to pick out a plant that you like better than the hybrid variety it came from. Professional breeders have create varieties based on what they think the average gardener and will grow over as wide a part of the country as possible. But you aren't an average gardener, and you only garden in one spot. Maybe you'd like something bigger for slicing on a sandwich or something smaller for eating out of hand, sweeter or more acidic, drought tolerant or the ability to grow through chilly wet weather. Grow out at least half a dozen seedlings from a hybrid variety, and you get the chance to customize it for your climate, your soil, and your tastebuds. Keep saving seeds from your favorite individuals, and after a few years, you'll have a new variety, one that will perform and taste better for you than the hybrid it came from. Give is a name, share it with your friends, pass it on to you children, and you've just created your own heirloom.
Go ahead. Save those seeds!
F1 hybrid varieties were first created because they have hybrid vigor, which is just another way of saying that they aren't inbred. Inbreeding, as we all know, isn't a good thing, generally resulting in unhealthy individuals. That's why we don't marry out sisters and why purebred dogs don't live as long as mutts. F1 hybrid varieties are a way to bring the health of mutts to a uniform variety. (How that works).
In the plant world, however, things are a little different. Some plants, like corn, are called outcrossers and act like us and dogs. Their flowers are set up in a way to maximize the chance that they get pollinated by another, hopefully unrelated, plant. These types of plants show very strong inbreeding depression, so hybrid varieties are significantly more vigorous than an inbred equivalent. Other plants, including tomatoes, peppers, beans, and lettuce, are selfers. Rather than working hard to get the wind or bees to carry their pollen to another flower, they just self pollinate, naturally inbreeding in the most extreme way possible. As a result, their genomes have adapted to tolerate inbreeding, meaning hybrids varieties don't show significant increase in vigor.
Why then, hybrid tomato varieties? Why do seed companies go to all the effort of hybrid seeds when a inbred variety would work just as well? Simply put, because you “can't save seeds from them.” Introducing hybrids is a way for plant breeding companies to protect their varieties from other companies taking what they've created. Since 'Early Girl' is a hybrid, the only way to produce more 'Early Girl' seeds is to have access to the two parent plants used to create it, parent plants that you can bet Burpee is very careful no one else is ever going to get ahold of.
When you save seeds from a hybrid variety like 'Early Girl', you'll get a range of different plants, none will be exactly the same as 'Early Girl' itself. Fruits will be a little bigger or smaller, sweeter or tarter, everything will differ to some degree. However, the traits you saw in the F1 parents plant will be essentially the C average for what you'll see in next generation. Despite the variability, it usually isn't hard to select out a plant that is very similar to the hybrid variety you liked so much.
It is even easier, though, to pick out a plant that you like better than the hybrid variety it came from. Professional breeders have create varieties based on what they think the average gardener and will grow over as wide a part of the country as possible. But you aren't an average gardener, and you only garden in one spot. Maybe you'd like something bigger for slicing on a sandwich or something smaller for eating out of hand, sweeter or more acidic, drought tolerant or the ability to grow through chilly wet weather. Grow out at least half a dozen seedlings from a hybrid variety, and you get the chance to customize it for your climate, your soil, and your tastebuds. Keep saving seeds from your favorite individuals, and after a few years, you'll have a new variety, one that will perform and taste better for you than the hybrid it came from. Give is a name, share it with your friends, pass it on to you children, and you've just created your own heirloom.
Go ahead. Save those seeds!
05 July 2011
Seedling's first flower!
Well, at long last, the first flower of my little rose seedling has opened!
Its mother looks like this:
And the daddy looks like this and boast the strongest fragrance of any rose I know:
And here is the first flower of their little baby:
It is a bit scruffy looking, but that will probably change as it matures. The first flower of a new rose seedling usually has fewer petals than the blooms from a mature plant, and the extra petals can significantly change the form and look of the overall bloom.
The good news is that the fragrance is outstanding! To my nose, almost as strong as its delightful father, which is saying something.
This cross resulted in about what I had expected, but that isn't always the case. Whenever you make a cross, odd, unexpected stuff pops out. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so much. But I got lucky this time with one of my other seedlings from the same cross. It germinated much later, so no flowers yet, but it has stunningly lovely blue-grey leaves, very very like Rosa glauca. Totally unexpected color, and very welcome! I can't wait to see what the flowers look like. Probably pink, like its sibling, but it could be different. In any case, I'll have to cross it with a bunch of my other favorite roses. Wouldn't a dark, rich, smoldering red flower look stunning on a bush of those leaves?
Its mother looks like this:
And the daddy looks like this and boast the strongest fragrance of any rose I know:
The good news is that the fragrance is outstanding! To my nose, almost as strong as its delightful father, which is saying something.
This cross resulted in about what I had expected, but that isn't always the case. Whenever you make a cross, odd, unexpected stuff pops out. Sometimes it is good, sometimes not so much. But I got lucky this time with one of my other seedlings from the same cross. It germinated much later, so no flowers yet, but it has stunningly lovely blue-grey leaves, very very like Rosa glauca. Totally unexpected color, and very welcome! I can't wait to see what the flowers look like. Probably pink, like its sibling, but it could be different. In any case, I'll have to cross it with a bunch of my other favorite roses. Wouldn't a dark, rich, smoldering red flower look stunning on a bush of those leaves?
17 June 2011
The mystery, discovery, and joy of breeding roses
All my roses are covered with different colored strings!
Why strings? Because, after nearly a decade, I've become re-interested in rose breeding, and all those little strings are marking developing hips I pollinated over the past couple weeks.
Roses were my first love when I got seriously into gardening and breeding as a teenager, but somehow the romance faded and I focused on other things. The, last year, on a whim, I made a couple crosses between some of my very favorite roses. And once I had seedlings germinating, all the excitement and joy of the relationship when it was new came flooding back, and I knew I had to start crossing them again.
Now I've got this, perhaps the most exciting thing there is in the world. The first bud on a seedling rose. Inside that tiny bud is a flower, never been seen before in the world. I'm hoping, hoping, it will be fragrant and richly colored, but I don't know. No one knows. This new rose awaits discovery. And next year, I'll have LOTS more mysterious new roses unveiling their unique beauty for the first time before my eyes. Ah, the JOY of rose breeding!
Roses were my first love when I got seriously into gardening and breeding as a teenager, but somehow the romance faded and I focused on other things. The, last year, on a whim, I made a couple crosses between some of my very favorite roses. And once I had seedlings germinating, all the excitement and joy of the relationship when it was new came flooding back, and I knew I had to start crossing them again.
06 April 2011
I still don't quite believe it
I've been growing plants from seed since before I started kindergarten
It seemed like magic to me then, and it still does today.
It seemed like magic to me then, and it still does today.
24 January 2011
Sciency Answer: Damping off
Back in November, when I posted my Great Catalog List, I sang the praises of buying seeds. In the comments, Lisa said she would like to grow more from seed, but has trouble with things damping off, and asked if I could give some help.
So, today's Sciency Answer is: Everything I Know About Damping off.
What is it?
Damping-off is a generic term for a number of disease (fungi and other bad stuff) that attack young seedlings. The seeds sprout, they look all happy, and then they start wilting and collapsing. It is pretty devastating, but quite preventable. You'll usually have problems with damping off if you have a LOT of fungal spores in your seed starting area for some reason, if your seedlings are weak or stressed, or if you keep the soil to wet. By following a few guidelines, you can keep your seedlings happy, the fungi unhappy, and your seed starting trouble-free.
Use sterile, high-quality potting media
I use Baccto, a sterile peat-based media, for my seedlings. There is nothing special about that brand, it is just what my favorite garden center carries. I know peat is controversial environmentally but it is also the best -- at least in my experience, and in the experience of most growers I have talked to. Feel free to disagree with me in the comments. I use a variety of other media for bigger pots and containers, mixing in my own compost and good garden soil along with peat alternatives like coir. But seedlings need the best, and since you only need a tiny container to get seedlings started, a little high-quality potting media goes a long way. Starting with sterile media means you aren't putting seeds into a giant population of pathogens waiting to consume them. I've read recommendations to top your media with a very thin layer of coarse grit, the reasoning being it will dry out quickly, making it difficult for fungi and friends to grow on the surface. I've never tried it, nor have I ever seen it used commercially, but it makes sense, and might be worth a try.
Use sterile containers
Either buy new ones for each batch of seedlings, or give them a soak in a bleach-water solution and rinse them thoroughly. Old, unsterilized containers can be loaded with potential disease.Keep the air moving
This is critical. In perfectly still air, a layer of nearly 100% humidity hangs right over the moist soil, making ideal conditions for all the nasties to grow and attack your seedlings. A fan very gently keeping the air circulating breaks up that super-high humidity layer and will make a dramatic reduction in your disease problems. HAF (Hortizontal Air Flow) fans are ALWAYS used by commercial growers and should be by home seed starters as well.
Give them enough light, sun light if possible
If seedlings don't have enough light, they become long, leggy, and extra susceptable to disease. Many commercial available seed-starting light systems simply don't have enough bulbs to produce healthy seedlings. I use two big florescent shop lights side-by-side, for a total of four florescent bulbs over my seedlings, keeping them vigorous and healthy enough to fend off pathogens. Sunlight is extra beneficial, because the UV rays provide a sterilizing effect, knocking back the disease organsism at the soil surface. In cold climates like mine, sunlight usually isn't an option because I'm starting most of my seeds in the later winter when it is way too cold for my seedlings outdoors. However, when I do get a rare warm, sunny afternoon, I always rush my seedlings outside into a sheltered, lightly shaded spot. One year, I neglected to have a fan running in my seed starting room, and a tray of tomato seedlings started collapsing left and right, but a few hours of sterilizing sun stopped the disease in its tracks.
Keep 'em warm, with bottom heat if possible
If your house (or wherever you are starting your seeds) is on the cool side, giving your seedlings a bit of extra heat will help them germinate and grow quickly, getting them past that vulnerable just-germinated stage faster. Some seed companies, like Johnny's, will list the best temperatures for germination of each plant. If I can't find specific information for a plant, I aim for the upper 70s F (~25 C). The extra heat is best if provided from below with a seedling heat mat. Bottom heat encourages the roots to grow rapidly without causing the stems to grow long and floppy, producing healthier seedlings -- and healthy, happy seedlings resist disease the best.
Don't keep them to wet
Seedlings have tiny root systems, and can't be let to dry out too much, but keeping them constantly soggy is asking for trouble. I never let the soil dry out until the seeds germinate, but once they're up and have some roots, I try to let the very surface of the soil get a little dry before watering again. It can be a bit of a balancing act, but if you are doing everything else right, you'll have some room for error on the watering.
In an emergency...
Sometimes, despite your best efforts, your seedling start damping off. As soon as you see a seedling wilting despite the soil being moist, you know you've got a problem. First, get the diseased seedling, the soil and other seedling around them out of there as quickly as possible. One they're infected, you can't save them, and they'll only spread disease to your other seedlings. Then you need to keep your other seedlings from dying as well. I like treat them with hydrogen peroxide, watering them with roughly 1 part hydrogen peroxide from the drug store to 9 parts water. Hydrogen peroxide acts directly to sterilize the soil, and it also is used by plants to signal their natural defense systems to get up and running, so watering with it acts like a warning: "Hey! Damping off is coming!"
What about commercial fungicides?
I don't spray any sort of pesticides (synthetic or organic) in my garden. If a plant can't cope, I pull it out, and find something better to grow. But I think fungicides make some sense for seeds and seedlings. When you spray a whole plant in the garden you have to use large quantities of the chemical and there is a high potential for it to drift, leach into ground water, and disrupt natural ecosystems. But treating a flat of seedlings under lights in my basement requires a tiny quantity of chemical with virtually no chance of it getting out into nature. That being said, I've never used fungicides on my seedlings -- the methods outlined above work fine for me, and I haven't seen the need. If you do, just be sure to do your homework to find the safest, most effective one possible, remembering that organics can be toxic and dangerous too!
Starting healthy seedlings isn't hard, provided you take the time upfront to create a seed starting area that promotes growth by seedlings not fungi. Now go buy some awesome seeds!
Have a question? Get a sciency answer! Just e-mail me: engeizuki at gmail dot com or ask it in the comments.
10 December 2010
06 December 2010
Sciency Answer: Seed cleaning and sprouting
Today's question is from Keith Long, brought on by a comment this post on his blog:
My question is about Rhodochiton astrosanguineum seeds.
When you buy these they're very small seeds with the husk (of each seed) removed. Yet the germination rate is very poor. Either that or the the type of people who buy them clearly are incapable of following their instructions!
Yet once you have a plant, and have collected the seeds, the germination rate is near 100%. Clearly, I don't mess about removing the individual seed husk, I just put the seeds in. The seeds in their husk are nearly the size of a chilli seed.
Why are they husked? Why does this lead to such a low rate of germination? And merely out of interest, how on earth do they do it without losing the minute seeds?
The factor here is almost certainly not the husk covering the seed, but the freshness of the seeds. Many seeds rapidly loose their viability, and need to be sown right away, while others simply start taking longer to germinate the longer they sit around dry. Based on my poking around, it appears that very fresh Rhodochiton seeds germinate rapidly and easily, while older seeds will still sprout, it just takes significantly longer.
Which makes one wonder... why would seeds do that?
A gardener, of course, wants every seed to sprout as soon as it is planted. But in the wild, plants need to be more careful. If every seed sprouts right away, one flood or late frost can wipe out the entire next generation. So most wild plants have various tricks to ensure seeds don't germinate all at once, or germinate at the best possible time. For a plant like Rhodochiton, fresh seed that falls on moist soil will sprout right away, getting a quick start on the next generation. But any seeds get a chance to sit dry for a while drop into a deeper dormancy and hang around without sprouting, acting as a sort of insurance policy to make sure there are still seeds around if something happens to those that have already germinated -- much as gardeners usually don't plant the whole packet at once in case of damping off.
How readily or uniformly seeds sprout often depends on the climate they evolved in. Plants from desert areas with erratic rainfall are notoriously hard to get good germination from, instead one seed at a time will sprout over a very long period -- extreme insurance for a difficult, erratic climate. Plants from wetter, more predictable climates tend to have seeds that sprout more uniformly.
Plants that have been grown for a long time by humans almost always develop quick and uniform germination because without even trying to, we tend to select the individuals that sprout first. If you sow 100 seeds, and 10 sprout in a week, most people just prick out those ten and forget about the other 90, even though they may have eventually sprouted. Those quick germinating seeds will go on to have more rapidly germinating offspring, and so on, until they all sprout at once like most familiar annuals and vegetables.
To get to your other questions about removing the husks, seed companies usually remove them for a number of reasons: It looks neater and tidier in the seed packet, the cracks of crevices of the husks can offer ideal little hiding places for fungi. In some cases, it also allows the seed producers to get a good look at the seed itself and separate out small, shriveled seeds that are unlikely to germinate.
Cleaning off all the husks and chaff of seeds can be rather a pain. I worked for a while for the Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center, and spent quite a bit of time cleaning seeds. The first step is usually to gently rub the seed heads between to rubber blocks, which crushes and breaks up the seed husks. You can then separate the chaff from the seeds a number of ways. A fine sieve will let fine seed fall through but keep big chunks of chaff behind. We also had a cool machine which was basically a big plastic tube with a fan in it which allowed us to blow off the light chaff but leave denser seeds behind. Various other shaking, blowing, and sieving machines are used to rapidly get all the seeds in one pile and the other stuff in another. It is kind of cool, but when you are working with many different species as we were, you have to figure out the best machine and setting for each species, which can lead to a frustrating amount of trial and error.
Have a question? Get a sciency answer! Just e-mail me: engeizuki at gmail dot com
My question is about Rhodochiton astrosanguineum seeds.
When you buy these they're very small seeds with the husk (of each seed) removed. Yet the germination rate is very poor. Either that or the the type of people who buy them clearly are incapable of following their instructions!
Yet once you have a plant, and have collected the seeds, the germination rate is near 100%. Clearly, I don't mess about removing the individual seed husk, I just put the seeds in. The seeds in their husk are nearly the size of a chilli seed.
Why are they husked? Why does this lead to such a low rate of germination? And merely out of interest, how on earth do they do it without losing the minute seeds?
The factor here is almost certainly not the husk covering the seed, but the freshness of the seeds. Many seeds rapidly loose their viability, and need to be sown right away, while others simply start taking longer to germinate the longer they sit around dry. Based on my poking around, it appears that very fresh Rhodochiton seeds germinate rapidly and easily, while older seeds will still sprout, it just takes significantly longer.
Which makes one wonder... why would seeds do that?
A gardener, of course, wants every seed to sprout as soon as it is planted. But in the wild, plants need to be more careful. If every seed sprouts right away, one flood or late frost can wipe out the entire next generation. So most wild plants have various tricks to ensure seeds don't germinate all at once, or germinate at the best possible time. For a plant like Rhodochiton, fresh seed that falls on moist soil will sprout right away, getting a quick start on the next generation. But any seeds get a chance to sit dry for a while drop into a deeper dormancy and hang around without sprouting, acting as a sort of insurance policy to make sure there are still seeds around if something happens to those that have already germinated -- much as gardeners usually don't plant the whole packet at once in case of damping off.
How readily or uniformly seeds sprout often depends on the climate they evolved in. Plants from desert areas with erratic rainfall are notoriously hard to get good germination from, instead one seed at a time will sprout over a very long period -- extreme insurance for a difficult, erratic climate. Plants from wetter, more predictable climates tend to have seeds that sprout more uniformly.
Plants that have been grown for a long time by humans almost always develop quick and uniform germination because without even trying to, we tend to select the individuals that sprout first. If you sow 100 seeds, and 10 sprout in a week, most people just prick out those ten and forget about the other 90, even though they may have eventually sprouted. Those quick germinating seeds will go on to have more rapidly germinating offspring, and so on, until they all sprout at once like most familiar annuals and vegetables.
To get to your other questions about removing the husks, seed companies usually remove them for a number of reasons: It looks neater and tidier in the seed packet, the cracks of crevices of the husks can offer ideal little hiding places for fungi. In some cases, it also allows the seed producers to get a good look at the seed itself and separate out small, shriveled seeds that are unlikely to germinate.
Cleaning off all the husks and chaff of seeds can be rather a pain. I worked for a while for the Ornamental Plant Germplasm Center, and spent quite a bit of time cleaning seeds. The first step is usually to gently rub the seed heads between to rubber blocks, which crushes and breaks up the seed husks. You can then separate the chaff from the seeds a number of ways. A fine sieve will let fine seed fall through but keep big chunks of chaff behind. We also had a cool machine which was basically a big plastic tube with a fan in it which allowed us to blow off the light chaff but leave denser seeds behind. Various other shaking, blowing, and sieving machines are used to rapidly get all the seeds in one pile and the other stuff in another. It is kind of cool, but when you are working with many different species as we were, you have to figure out the best machine and setting for each species, which can lead to a frustrating amount of trial and error.
Have a question? Get a sciency answer! Just e-mail me: engeizuki at gmail dot com
29 November 2010
The Great Catalog list!
It is official. Plant catalog season is underway! Time to make some tea, get a blanket, and do some serious dreaming about next year's garden. To celebrate, I'm writing this post, which is an annotated list of all my favorite, can't-live-without-'em catalogs. I thought about pretending that this was for the purposes of sharing good information with you, my readers, but in reality, that is just a ploy. I always worry that I'm missing out on great catalogs, so this is my chance to pick all your brains on the best sources I don't yet know about. So PLEASE, if you love a company that isn't on my list mention in it in the comments, or better yet, talk about them on your blog (if you have one) and leave a link to it here.
I should add that this list is almost all seed catalogs. I am a huge fan of buying seeds through the mail. Mail order plants are tiny, expensive, and generally very stressed by the whole shipping process. Mail order seeds, on the other hand, are cheap (critically important to a grad student like myself) and utterly unfazed by shipping. They also cross country lines easily, unlike growing plants, which means you can happily shop from around the world. Seeds also solve the great problem of balancing the collecting urge to have one of everything with the good design imperative to plant in drifts since a single packet of seed easily produces a dozen or more plants. In short, seeds are the best -- within reason, of course. Some things are a pain to germinate, or don't come true from seed, but for everything else, there are seeds.
Oh, and I should say: I've never gotten any sort of kick-back or blogger swag from any of these companies. I just love 'em.
So, with no further ado, my very favorite catalogs, in no particular order:
Seed Savers Exchange
An exciting, diverse range of very cool heirloom vegetables. Nonmembers can shop the catalog, members get access to the entire seed exchange. I finally joined up this year and can't WAIT to see all the amazing stuff I'm going to have access to.
Johnny's Selected Seeds
If you grow vegetables in the north, you've got to check out Johnny's. Their catalog is more informative than most gardening books, you can rely on their varieties to perform, and they do great breeding work. I go to other catalogs for crazy experiments. I go to Johnny's for solid varieties and information I can count on.
Pinetree Garden Seeds
I always order a lot from Pinetree because they've got a winning formula: Small seed packets, and very low prices. Who really needs 200 tomato seeds anyway? They have a very diverse selection of vegetables, many of them quite hard to find anywhere else. My only complaint is that their catalog is always horribly confusingly organized (why on earth aren't all the tomato varieties together in the same section?) but that is a minor quibble. Pinetree can't be beat when it comes to value for your money.
Territorial Seeds
I don't order much from Territorial, but I really like them. They do vegetables. Essentially they are a Johnny's for the Northwest, and since I don't live in the Northwest, their stuff is less applicable to me. But the catalog is a great, information packed read, and they always have a some quirky, cool things I want to try and can't find anywhere else.
Chiltern Seeds
Chiltern... love, love, love, adore this catalog. They're in the UK, but ship to the US without any fuss or bother, and oh, what a catalog. Their focus is ornamentals, and what a selection it is... page after page after page of amazing things I've never heard of. The catalog is also a lot of fun to read with funny, silly descriptions. On the down side, Chiltern is very expensive, especially with the exchange rate, and since they are in England their descriptions of how hardy or easy to grow something is essentially mean nothing here in my climate. That being said, even very expensive seeds are incredibly cheap compared to buying plants at the nursery, so why not experiment? This catalog is a high point. I read it cover to cover several times every winter with google and stacks of reference books around me. Chiltern will give you a wildly interesting botanical education, and a LOT of plant lust to deal with.
Gardens North
Another insanely terrific seed company for rare and unusual ornamentals. The selection is at least as varied and fascinating as any of the British companies I recommend here, but they are in Canada which means that I can actually GROW all the cool stuff they have on offer. They don't publish a paper catalog, which is kind of sad, but the website is wonderful. It also changes frequently throughout the year, meaning I have to go check out what they are up to every few months... and order a few things.
B and T World Seeds
B and T does seeds of ornamentals. This isn't really a browse-able catalog, because there are essentially no descriptions, but the selection is mind-boggling. If there is a specific thing I'm looking for, and no one else has it, they usually do. Based in France, ships to the US effortlessly.
ebay
Who would have thunk? Like B and T, ebay is hard to browse, but recently I've discovered that the range of rare (and not so rare) seeds and plants you can pick up there is pretty surprising. Quality is, of course, hit or miss, but I've actually always had good experiences. I always check there when I want something specific and can't find it anywhere else.
McClure and Zimmerman
My personal favorite bulb sellers. The selection is good, the catalog is very pleasant reading, and service is great. My default source for fall and spring planted bulbs.
Old House Gardens
This is a new one for me this year -- which is shocking since they are right here in Michigan! They are bulb sellers, with a solid, interesting selection. They might just be rivaling McClure and Zimmerman for my business this year.
Rosy Dawn Gardens
I just surfed into this company the other day, but I'm super excited about it! I love a company that REALLY specializes. These people just do coleus. Lots and lots of uber-cool coleus, some of their own breeding. Now I feel like I can stop by their site and know I've got access to everything coleus have to offer.
Specialty Perennials
I hesitate to recommend this company, but since I end up ordering from them every year I feel I can hardly leave them out. They do seed for a wide range of hardy perennials. I like them because they have a great listing of rare and unusual stuff, and also seeds of things that you can usually only buy as plants (last year, for example, I got heuchera, bergenia, and astilbe seed from them) which is great for someone like me who is gardening on a tight budget. The downside is their customer service or, rather, the lack thereof. Place an order, and your credit card gets charged right away and then it can take literally months for an order to get shipped. To add insult to injury, in the mean time they won't respond to e-mails or calls trying to find out what is going on. However, the seeds always do eventually arrive with fun free extras, prices are quite low, and the selection is good. So every year I bite my tongue, order early, and am patient.
Plant Delights Nursery
Does anyone NOT know this one? Just in case you don't, they sell a mind-boggling range of ornamental perennials. PDN is pricy, but also worth it. Like all really great nurseries, PDN focuses on their local climate, namely hot and humid North Carolina, so their selection is less applicable for me here in chilly Michigan, but I seem to end up ordering something from them every year. Whether you order anything or not, the catalog is a must read. Nobody writes a plant description quite like Tony Avent...
Annie's Annuals (and perennials)
If you've ever googled an unusual plant name, you've probably had Annie's Annuals pop up as a hit, complete with a lovely photograph and lots of good info. Annie's is a truly amazing nursery, with a stunning and eclectic array of both ornamentals and vegetables. Since they are in California and I'm in Michigan, a browse through their catalog leaves me with a severe case of zone envy more often than an actual list of plants to buy, but still, I wouldn't give up looking through for anything. Someday I'll build a greenhouse just so I can grow everything Annie sells.
Plant World Seeds
I just learned about this one last year, and oh MY. They are now rivaling Chiltern and Gardens North as my absolute favorite source of seed for ornamentals. Just typing their address into my browser sends a little shiver of joy down my spine. They're in England, so all the usual comments about climate and the expense due to the exchange rate, but what a catalog! What a selection! Plant World does a lot of their own breeding, so their catalog is full of hot-off-the-press, completely unique, new varieties. If nothing else, you've GOT to check out their selection of fragrant columbine. Now that I've grown them, I absolutely refuse to grow anything else. That is the sort of catalog this is: one that will change how you think about whole groups of plants.
Baker Creek
Rapidly becoming THE heirloom vegetable seed company, Baker Creek has a stunningly diverse, fascinating selection of varieties from around the world. Where so many companies take the "heirloom" concept only as far as the old standards like 'Brandywine' tomatoes, Baker Creek goes literally all over the world with things like a red-and-purple striped tomato from China or a watermelon from Iraq. The catalog for seriously crazy vegetable fun.
J.L. Hudson
This is perhaps the quirkiest seed catalog I've ever read. Vegetables, ornamentals, odd "ethnobotanicals", you name it. The selections are always intriguing (want to grow a bitter-but-edible wild relative of lettuce?) and I always have a great deal of fun reading it. Since they are seeds, experimentation is cheap, and experiment I always do.
A.M. Leonard
No plants here, but every tool, stake, or widget you could possibly want for your garden. Frustrated with my local garden center's vast selection of hideous garden sculpture and tiny selection of overpriced hand tools that break, I've shifted my gardening hardware needs 100% to AM Leonard. The quality is high with solid, dependable tools rather than gimicky gadgets, prices are low, and shipping is practically instantaneous.
Glasshouse Works
This is my source of choice for unusual house plants and tropical plants for the garden. Their list of varieties is long and incredibly diverse, but their website a giant confusing mess of links and images, and it can be quite difficult to find your way around (a friend who visited the nursery in person said it was just as confused and dis-orderly there). Once you do get to the list of plants, however, be prepared for some fun. The coleus go on for pages, as do the begonias (many from their own breeding program). Shipping can be very slow, as sometimes they have to root a cutting before they can send a plant to you, and I've gotten a few dreadfully pot-bound, overgrown things from them, but everything has been disease and pest free, and they always seem to throw in a few free plants with the order. When I ordered a few begonias this spring, they included three extra ones, along with a note saying they were nice varieties, and a little more reliable than the ones I had ordered. I'd love these people just for the wide selection, but that generous, personal touch really keeps me coming back.
Arrowhead Alpines
Despite the name, Arrowhead doesn't just do alpines -- they do just about any ornamental plant you can think of, and many you can't think of because you've not heard of them yet. They are one of the great specialty nurseries in the country, with an enormous sprawling catalog packed with delightful gems. Better yet, at least from my perspective, they are right here in Michigan, which means when they say "hardy" I know that actually means it will survive my winter. For anyone in zone 5 interested in pushing boundaries, theirs is the catalog to get your hands on. Even better, the catalog is a joy to read, full of puns and silly jokes, and if you get to visit the nursery itself (highly recommended), you'll find they are delightful in person as well. I would say a good 80% of the growing plants (as opposed to seeds or bulbs) I buy every year come from Arrowhead.
So that is my list. Now, please let me know what I'm missing! I eagerly await new discoveries.
I should add that this list is almost all seed catalogs. I am a huge fan of buying seeds through the mail. Mail order plants are tiny, expensive, and generally very stressed by the whole shipping process. Mail order seeds, on the other hand, are cheap (critically important to a grad student like myself) and utterly unfazed by shipping. They also cross country lines easily, unlike growing plants, which means you can happily shop from around the world. Seeds also solve the great problem of balancing the collecting urge to have one of everything with the good design imperative to plant in drifts since a single packet of seed easily produces a dozen or more plants. In short, seeds are the best -- within reason, of course. Some things are a pain to germinate, or don't come true from seed, but for everything else, there are seeds.
Oh, and I should say: I've never gotten any sort of kick-back or blogger swag from any of these companies. I just love 'em.
So, with no further ado, my very favorite catalogs, in no particular order:
Seed Savers Exchange
An exciting, diverse range of very cool heirloom vegetables. Nonmembers can shop the catalog, members get access to the entire seed exchange. I finally joined up this year and can't WAIT to see all the amazing stuff I'm going to have access to.
Johnny's Selected Seeds
If you grow vegetables in the north, you've got to check out Johnny's. Their catalog is more informative than most gardening books, you can rely on their varieties to perform, and they do great breeding work. I go to other catalogs for crazy experiments. I go to Johnny's for solid varieties and information I can count on.
Pinetree Garden Seeds
I always order a lot from Pinetree because they've got a winning formula: Small seed packets, and very low prices. Who really needs 200 tomato seeds anyway? They have a very diverse selection of vegetables, many of them quite hard to find anywhere else. My only complaint is that their catalog is always horribly confusingly organized (why on earth aren't all the tomato varieties together in the same section?) but that is a minor quibble. Pinetree can't be beat when it comes to value for your money.
Territorial Seeds
I don't order much from Territorial, but I really like them. They do vegetables. Essentially they are a Johnny's for the Northwest, and since I don't live in the Northwest, their stuff is less applicable to me. But the catalog is a great, information packed read, and they always have a some quirky, cool things I want to try and can't find anywhere else.
Chiltern Seeds
Chiltern... love, love, love, adore this catalog. They're in the UK, but ship to the US without any fuss or bother, and oh, what a catalog. Their focus is ornamentals, and what a selection it is... page after page after page of amazing things I've never heard of. The catalog is also a lot of fun to read with funny, silly descriptions. On the down side, Chiltern is very expensive, especially with the exchange rate, and since they are in England their descriptions of how hardy or easy to grow something is essentially mean nothing here in my climate. That being said, even very expensive seeds are incredibly cheap compared to buying plants at the nursery, so why not experiment? This catalog is a high point. I read it cover to cover several times every winter with google and stacks of reference books around me. Chiltern will give you a wildly interesting botanical education, and a LOT of plant lust to deal with.
Gardens North
Another insanely terrific seed company for rare and unusual ornamentals. The selection is at least as varied and fascinating as any of the British companies I recommend here, but they are in Canada which means that I can actually GROW all the cool stuff they have on offer. They don't publish a paper catalog, which is kind of sad, but the website is wonderful. It also changes frequently throughout the year, meaning I have to go check out what they are up to every few months... and order a few things.
B and T World Seeds
B and T does seeds of ornamentals. This isn't really a browse-able catalog, because there are essentially no descriptions, but the selection is mind-boggling. If there is a specific thing I'm looking for, and no one else has it, they usually do. Based in France, ships to the US effortlessly.
ebay
Who would have thunk? Like B and T, ebay is hard to browse, but recently I've discovered that the range of rare (and not so rare) seeds and plants you can pick up there is pretty surprising. Quality is, of course, hit or miss, but I've actually always had good experiences. I always check there when I want something specific and can't find it anywhere else.
McClure and Zimmerman
My personal favorite bulb sellers. The selection is good, the catalog is very pleasant reading, and service is great. My default source for fall and spring planted bulbs.
Old House Gardens
This is a new one for me this year -- which is shocking since they are right here in Michigan! They are bulb sellers, with a solid, interesting selection. They might just be rivaling McClure and Zimmerman for my business this year.
Rosy Dawn Gardens
I just surfed into this company the other day, but I'm super excited about it! I love a company that REALLY specializes. These people just do coleus. Lots and lots of uber-cool coleus, some of their own breeding. Now I feel like I can stop by their site and know I've got access to everything coleus have to offer.
Specialty Perennials
I hesitate to recommend this company, but since I end up ordering from them every year I feel I can hardly leave them out. They do seed for a wide range of hardy perennials. I like them because they have a great listing of rare and unusual stuff, and also seeds of things that you can usually only buy as plants (last year, for example, I got heuchera, bergenia, and astilbe seed from them) which is great for someone like me who is gardening on a tight budget. The downside is their customer service or, rather, the lack thereof. Place an order, and your credit card gets charged right away and then it can take literally months for an order to get shipped. To add insult to injury, in the mean time they won't respond to e-mails or calls trying to find out what is going on. However, the seeds always do eventually arrive with fun free extras, prices are quite low, and the selection is good. So every year I bite my tongue, order early, and am patient.
Plant Delights Nursery
Does anyone NOT know this one? Just in case you don't, they sell a mind-boggling range of ornamental perennials. PDN is pricy, but also worth it. Like all really great nurseries, PDN focuses on their local climate, namely hot and humid North Carolina, so their selection is less applicable for me here in chilly Michigan, but I seem to end up ordering something from them every year. Whether you order anything or not, the catalog is a must read. Nobody writes a plant description quite like Tony Avent...
Annie's Annuals (and perennials)
If you've ever googled an unusual plant name, you've probably had Annie's Annuals pop up as a hit, complete with a lovely photograph and lots of good info. Annie's is a truly amazing nursery, with a stunning and eclectic array of both ornamentals and vegetables. Since they are in California and I'm in Michigan, a browse through their catalog leaves me with a severe case of zone envy more often than an actual list of plants to buy, but still, I wouldn't give up looking through for anything. Someday I'll build a greenhouse just so I can grow everything Annie sells.
Plant World Seeds
I just learned about this one last year, and oh MY. They are now rivaling Chiltern and Gardens North as my absolute favorite source of seed for ornamentals. Just typing their address into my browser sends a little shiver of joy down my spine. They're in England, so all the usual comments about climate and the expense due to the exchange rate, but what a catalog! What a selection! Plant World does a lot of their own breeding, so their catalog is full of hot-off-the-press, completely unique, new varieties. If nothing else, you've GOT to check out their selection of fragrant columbine. Now that I've grown them, I absolutely refuse to grow anything else. That is the sort of catalog this is: one that will change how you think about whole groups of plants.
Baker Creek
Rapidly becoming THE heirloom vegetable seed company, Baker Creek has a stunningly diverse, fascinating selection of varieties from around the world. Where so many companies take the "heirloom" concept only as far as the old standards like 'Brandywine' tomatoes, Baker Creek goes literally all over the world with things like a red-and-purple striped tomato from China or a watermelon from Iraq. The catalog for seriously crazy vegetable fun.
J.L. Hudson
This is perhaps the quirkiest seed catalog I've ever read. Vegetables, ornamentals, odd "ethnobotanicals", you name it. The selections are always intriguing (want to grow a bitter-but-edible wild relative of lettuce?) and I always have a great deal of fun reading it. Since they are seeds, experimentation is cheap, and experiment I always do.
A.M. Leonard
No plants here, but every tool, stake, or widget you could possibly want for your garden. Frustrated with my local garden center's vast selection of hideous garden sculpture and tiny selection of overpriced hand tools that break, I've shifted my gardening hardware needs 100% to AM Leonard. The quality is high with solid, dependable tools rather than gimicky gadgets, prices are low, and shipping is practically instantaneous.
Glasshouse Works
This is my source of choice for unusual house plants and tropical plants for the garden. Their list of varieties is long and incredibly diverse, but their website a giant confusing mess of links and images, and it can be quite difficult to find your way around (a friend who visited the nursery in person said it was just as confused and dis-orderly there). Once you do get to the list of plants, however, be prepared for some fun. The coleus go on for pages, as do the begonias (many from their own breeding program). Shipping can be very slow, as sometimes they have to root a cutting before they can send a plant to you, and I've gotten a few dreadfully pot-bound, overgrown things from them, but everything has been disease and pest free, and they always seem to throw in a few free plants with the order. When I ordered a few begonias this spring, they included three extra ones, along with a note saying they were nice varieties, and a little more reliable than the ones I had ordered. I'd love these people just for the wide selection, but that generous, personal touch really keeps me coming back.
Arrowhead Alpines
Despite the name, Arrowhead doesn't just do alpines -- they do just about any ornamental plant you can think of, and many you can't think of because you've not heard of them yet. They are one of the great specialty nurseries in the country, with an enormous sprawling catalog packed with delightful gems. Better yet, at least from my perspective, they are right here in Michigan, which means when they say "hardy" I know that actually means it will survive my winter. For anyone in zone 5 interested in pushing boundaries, theirs is the catalog to get your hands on. Even better, the catalog is a joy to read, full of puns and silly jokes, and if you get to visit the nursery itself (highly recommended), you'll find they are delightful in person as well. I would say a good 80% of the growing plants (as opposed to seeds or bulbs) I buy every year come from Arrowhead.
So that is my list. Now, please let me know what I'm missing! I eagerly await new discoveries.
26 November 2010
Black Friday
While you are thinking about shopping, why not go buy my cartoon calendar? It makes a perfect gift for that gardener in your life (even if that gardener is yourself...)
17 November 2010
Cyclamen hederifolium
I adore Cyclamen hederifolium. Those leaves...
They come up in late summer or early fall, when everything else is going down hill, and last well into the spring, looking amazing for me from at very least from October to May -- the very period of time that is hardest to keep looking good in my climate. What's more, they perform like this in the dry shade under my maples, not minding the absolute lack of water in the summer since they're dormant then anyway. They flower too, very profusely in September and October. I like the flowers, but the leaves are so much lovelier that I realize I don't even have any photos of the flowers.
There is a lot of variability in the leaf patterning. Arrowhead Alpines has a wide range of leaf types, and I love going and picking out my favorites.
This is one I picked out this spring. I love the complexity of the patterning.
I also love their silver leaved strains, where the silver covers almost the entire leaf. They are not as cool up close, but make a better statement from a distance.
Hardy cyclamen grow from a big, flat corm, but unlike the corms of crocuses, they don't divide. They just keep getting bigger and bigger every year. The picture above was a plant I purchased last year. Here is what it looks like this year:
Since they don't divide, pretty much the only way to get more is to buy them (which gets expensive) or to start them from seed. I always get a few self-sown seedlings, like this little two year old plant:
But I've had terrible luck starting seeds myself. I know the seeds require absolute darkness to germinate, but everytime I've ordered seeds and tried starting them, I get miserable germination rates. This year, however, I had great success. I decided to imitate nature, so I collected seeds as soon as they ripened on my plants -- the middle of this summer. (surprisingly, the seeds take almost an entire year to ripen.) and sowed them in pots right away. I'd read that absolute darkness is a must, and even a little light can stop germination, so I put the pots in a plastic bag to keep the moist, and shoved them in a box. Then I watched my plants outside. I figured the seeds would be germinating at about the same time the plants ouside were puttig up their leaves. Dispite my temptation, I didn't open the box and let light in, until my plants outside were looking stunning. Then I opened the box and...
Seedlings! I've got two more pots like this, totally maybe100 little seedlings. I'll let these guys over winter outside in a sheltered nook, then divide them up into individual pots once they go dormant next summer. I can't WAIT to see what leaf patterns they have as they mature. I'm not sure what the critical factor for success was -- I'm guessing it was the combination of very fresh seeds that hadn't dried out, and matching the timing to their natural growth cycle. In anycase, now I know how to get lots more cyclamen, which makes me very happy. I might buy a few other species this year, so I can harvest fresh seed from them as well. Because I think it is physically impossible to have too many hardy cyclamen. Or most any other plant, but especially cyclamen.
There is a lot of variability in the leaf patterning. Arrowhead Alpines has a wide range of leaf types, and I love going and picking out my favorites.
This is one I picked out this spring. I love the complexity of the patterning.
I also love their silver leaved strains, where the silver covers almost the entire leaf. They are not as cool up close, but make a better statement from a distance.
But I've had terrible luck starting seeds myself. I know the seeds require absolute darkness to germinate, but everytime I've ordered seeds and tried starting them, I get miserable germination rates. This year, however, I had great success. I decided to imitate nature, so I collected seeds as soon as they ripened on my plants -- the middle of this summer. (surprisingly, the seeds take almost an entire year to ripen.) and sowed them in pots right away. I'd read that absolute darkness is a must, and even a little light can stop germination, so I put the pots in a plastic bag to keep the moist, and shoved them in a box. Then I watched my plants outside. I figured the seeds would be germinating at about the same time the plants ouside were puttig up their leaves. Dispite my temptation, I didn't open the box and let light in, until my plants outside were looking stunning. Then I opened the box and...
Seedlings! I've got two more pots like this, totally maybe100 little seedlings. I'll let these guys over winter outside in a sheltered nook, then divide them up into individual pots once they go dormant next summer. I can't WAIT to see what leaf patterns they have as they mature. I'm not sure what the critical factor for success was -- I'm guessing it was the combination of very fresh seeds that hadn't dried out, and matching the timing to their natural growth cycle. In anycase, now I know how to get lots more cyclamen, which makes me very happy. I might buy a few other species this year, so I can harvest fresh seed from them as well. Because I think it is physically impossible to have too many hardy cyclamen. Or most any other plant, but especially cyclamen.
22 September 2010
Where are the violas?
I learned my lesson. Pansies and violas, like tulips and daffodils, really ought to be planted in the fall so they can get established, overwinter, and start pumping out blooms while everything else is still underground. So why, of why, doesn't anyone have them for sale? I stopped at a local independent garden center last week. It had been overrun with pansies and violas in the spring, so I expected to find a good selection -- but no such luck... not a single one to be seen. I stopped at a big box store for another errand and found a measly selection of pansies. I bought a few even though I prefer the smaller flowers of violas better, and even though they were a mix of colors half of which I didn't want, because something is better than nothing. Once in they were in the ground, I knew I needed something better, so I trekked out to the good garden center, the one that is a good 30 minute drive away and has all sorts of cool stuff, confident they would have the cute, tough, smaller flowered violas I want in a wide range of colors. Ha. They had just a few pansies too, even less selection than the big box store. I was devastated and had to comfort myself by browsing through the discounted perennials and buying a dozen Digitalis thapsi for only a $1.50 each. This put me in a better mood, and I did end up buying a few trays of their pansies.
So I had to settle for pansies. Pansies which are pretty, of course, but I wanted violas. I was ready to spend vast amounts of money on violas to ensure that I would have a knock-out show next spring and... no luck. Independant garden center owners, if you are listening, this is why I end up spending less and less money every year at your stores, and more and more on mail order seeds. Now I know that if I want violas in the fall, I'm going to have to order seeds and grow them myself. Unless anyone knows of somewhere selling violas right now in Michigan?
14 July 2010
The smell of disappointment
This is a picture of one of my night scented stock, Matthiola longipetala. It is a ratty little weedy looking thing, which is okay. It is supposed to look like that. But those white flowers that open up every evening are supposed to be incredibly fragrant. Only mine aren't. I planted them in a little nook next to the porch so they could perfume summer evenings, but though the flowers open every evening, they have no scent to speak of. If I get down on my knees and shove my nose into them, I can just barely smell them -- but that is all! I'm so sad. Do mine just not smell? Can I just not smell them? Do they need something special in order to smell?
29 May 2010
Echium enthusiasm
It started, as these things so often do, with the Chiltern Seeds catalog. Their thick catalog of lust-inducing descriptions (and no pictures) arrives every winter, and I discover some new group of plants I just HAVE to try.
How could I pass up this description of Echium lusitanicum ssp. polycaulon?
"From Portugal comes this delightful and little known plant for the border. Forming three foot rosettes of large, bristly leaves, it produces over a long period in late spring and early summer many softly hairy stems bearing 18 inch spikes of lovely, vibrant pale blue flowers with violet veins and gracefully protruding stamens. Recommended as a quality cut flower. 3 ft"
Or this, of Echium russicum?
"From Eastern Europe comes this superb species producing bushy specimens with attractive, slender, pointed, white-hairy leaves, and bearing rather splendid, twelve inch spikes of bright dark red or crimson flowers charmingly garnished with long-protruding red filaments. Definitely something different for the front of your borders and, although often thought of as a biennial, it will often become a short-lived perennial if it gets to like you. 2-3 ft."
So last year, I ordered the seeds (along with some E. vulgare 'Blue Bedder' and E. fastuosum). Last summer they just made little rosettes, but they over wintered, and now are showing their stuff.
E. russicum is in full bloom right now, and I'm in love with the delicious raspberry crush color:
The plant as a whole is a little loose, but would look great in a densely planted boarder, and I'm excited to try them as cut flowers.
According to what I could find on-line, E. lusitanicum is only hardy to zone 7 -- but they overwintered just fine for me (though last winter was a mild one) and are just starting to send up their flower spikes. I can't wait to see them in bloom.
E. fastuosum isn't hardy, the ones I left outside died, but I overwintered one in a big pot inside. It is looking pretty lopsided from the long, dark, Michigan winter
But the foliage is still amazing, and I'm hoping for flowers this year.
Anyone else growing Echium? I think this is an obsession that is just beginning... Chiltern offers another variety, a hybrid called 'Snow Tower' which they describe as being "almost unbelievable – an enormous plant producing an enormous avalanche of snow-white flowers. Up to 15 ft" Can you imagine? 15 FEET of echium goodness! I'm sure it will be next to impossible to over winter... I'm also sure that won't stop me from trying!
How could I pass up this description of Echium lusitanicum ssp. polycaulon?
"From Portugal comes this delightful and little known plant for the border. Forming three foot rosettes of large, bristly leaves, it produces over a long period in late spring and early summer many softly hairy stems bearing 18 inch spikes of lovely, vibrant pale blue flowers with violet veins and gracefully protruding stamens. Recommended as a quality cut flower. 3 ft"
Or this, of Echium russicum?
"From Eastern Europe comes this superb species producing bushy specimens with attractive, slender, pointed, white-hairy leaves, and bearing rather splendid, twelve inch spikes of bright dark red or crimson flowers charmingly garnished with long-protruding red filaments. Definitely something different for the front of your borders and, although often thought of as a biennial, it will often become a short-lived perennial if it gets to like you. 2-3 ft."
So last year, I ordered the seeds (along with some E. vulgare 'Blue Bedder' and E. fastuosum). Last summer they just made little rosettes, but they over wintered, and now are showing their stuff.
E. russicum is in full bloom right now, and I'm in love with the delicious raspberry crush color:
According to what I could find on-line, E. lusitanicum is only hardy to zone 7 -- but they overwintered just fine for me (though last winter was a mild one) and are just starting to send up their flower spikes. I can't wait to see them in bloom.
E. fastuosum isn't hardy, the ones I left outside died, but I overwintered one in a big pot inside. It is looking pretty lopsided from the long, dark, Michigan winter
But the foliage is still amazing, and I'm hoping for flowers this year.
Anyone else growing Echium? I think this is an obsession that is just beginning... Chiltern offers another variety, a hybrid called 'Snow Tower' which they describe as being "almost unbelievable – an enormous plant producing an enormous avalanche of snow-white flowers. Up to 15 ft" Can you imagine? 15 FEET of echium goodness! I'm sure it will be next to impossible to over winter... I'm also sure that won't stop me from trying!
30 January 2010
Seeds: A reality check.
My drawing yesterday was a happy image of how getting packages of seeds is like having a mailbox full of plants in the middle of winter.
This is the reality of my current seed situation:
Yes, this is a real, non-staged shot of my dining room table as I tried to sort through what seeds to direct sow, which to start early inside... this is AFTER I removed a dozen or so packets I decided I wasn't going to have room for. I started counting them up... and gave up when I reached 100. I think I overdid it a bit. Just a bit.
This is the reality of my current seed situation:
29 January 2010
13 January 2010
And so another season of obsession begins...
Just SOME of the seeds I've ordered so far this year. I'm carefully NOT thinking about how on earth I'm going to have room for them all.
05 January 2010
Anyone want to grow some crazy mixed-up tomato hybrid F2s?
Two years ago I crossbred the tomato Matt's Wild Cherry (which is simply the most delicious cherry tomato I have EVER had the pleasure of eating) with Black Krim (which is a tasty, large, dark colored variety ) Last year I grew the F1 plants, and collected a LOT of F2 seed (See my post yesterday for an explanation of the F1 F2 stuff) which I am going to be growing this year: They will be a crazy mix of sizes (roughly ¾ will be cherries, ¼ full sized, though there should be a lot of size variation within those two groups), colors, and flavors – though all of them should be very delicious. I'm looking forward to growing out lots and lots, tasting them, and picking out my favorites – and I'm wondering it anyone else wants to do so as well. I've got oodles of seed, so if you want to grow some, just e-mail me (engeizuki at gmail dot com) and I can send them to you. All I ask is that you grow a bunch of plants, do a taste test, and send me back some seeds from any individuals you particularly like.Photo credits:
Matt's wild cherry
Black Krim
04 January 2010
What the F?
Welcome to my explanation of the terms F1 and F2. I'm writing this in preparation for a future post in which I want to reference these terms -- I don't want to have to explain them in that post, and I think most people know roughly what they mean, but just in case, I'm writing this so I can link back to it for the sake of the confused
.
When you make a hybrid between two different varieties or species or whatevers the first generation is the F1 generation. The babies of the F1s are the F2s, children of the F2s are the F3s, et cetera.
One talks about F1s and F2s a lot because they have special characteristics, which basically boil down to this: If I cross two different things, the F1s will all be the same, and the F2s will all be different.
Some real life pictures of this: For my research in grad school, I'm working with a hybrid of two species of petunia: Petunia axillaris, which is white, and the red flowered Petunia exserta.
The F1 generation of this hybrid all looks the same: Very, very pale pink flowers:
While a bunch of F2 plants look like this: A random mix of all different shades of pink.
But WHY are the F1s all the same, and the F2s all different? Let me use another example: A couple years ago I made a hybrid between two tomatoes. One, Matt's Wild Cherry is (as you might guess...) a cherry tomato. The other, Black Krim, is not a cherry tomato. The cherry trait is controlled by a single gene: Have one or more copies of the dominate version (C) of this gene, and you make cherry tomatoes. Have two copies of the recessive version (c) and you make big fruits. So I made my two tomatoes have sex, and they had a bunch of little F1 babies. Each F1 got a copy of each gene from each of the parents. From Matt's Wild Cherry they got the dominate version C, and from Black Krim, the recessive version c. So all the F1 plants had one C and one c, and since C is dominate, they were all cherry tomatoes. I then crossed the different F1 plants with each other to produce the F2 generation. Now each F1 has one copy of C and one of c, so when they make babies, they randomly choose just one of the versions of the gene (sometimes C, sometimes c) to pass on to the next generation -- meaning among the F2 plants, some will happen to get a C from both parents, some will get one C and one c, and some two copies of c – making the F2 generation a mix of cherry and full sized tomatoes.
The exact same process works for all the other genes in the tomato: There are genes for the dark color of Black Krim, genes for the sweetness and flavor of their fruit, how they grow, when they flower, and so on. All the F1 plants are the same with exactly one version of each gene from each parent, but the F2 will be a wild mix of all the different possible combinations of the different genes from the two parents.
And why should you care? Well, seed companies use this all the time to their advantage. When they are developing a new variety of tomato, they need it to be uniform – all the seedlings need to look the same (if you buy a packet of Early Girl seeds, and some plants came out as cherries, and others yellow, you wouldn't be too pleased, now would you?) The easiest way to make a variety uniform is inbreeding: Cross closely related plants each generation and you'll eliminate genetic variation resulting in perfect uniformity. But just as it isn't smart to marry your sister, inbred plants have problems (well, usually – some plants, like squash, are actually fine with it). So what to do? Well, if you take two uniform, inbred lines, and hybridize them the F1 generation will be not be inbred, because it is a hybrid, but will be uniform because it is a F1. Problem solved. And even better, if a company sells F1 hybrids, you have to buy new seeds every year because if you save your own seeds, they will produce the F2 generation when all chaos breaks loose. So F1 hybrid varieties are not only an easy way to make healthy, uniform varieties, they also are a good way to ensure repeat sales (Though to be honest, people saving seeds isn't much of a concern to seed companies – the bigger issue is other seed companies using their varieties to develop similar, competing varieties, something releasing F1 hybrids makes that much harder to do.)
So that's it, really: The numbers after the F indicate what generation you are talking about, and the ones we generally care about are the F1s, which are all the same, and F2s, which are all different. I hope you now feel extremely wise.
.
When you make a hybrid between two different varieties or species or whatevers the first generation is the F1 generation. The babies of the F1s are the F2s, children of the F2s are the F3s, et cetera.
One talks about F1s and F2s a lot because they have special characteristics, which basically boil down to this: If I cross two different things, the F1s will all be the same, and the F2s will all be different.
The F1 generation of this hybrid all looks the same: Very, very pale pink flowers:
While a bunch of F2 plants look like this: A random mix of all different shades of pink.
But WHY are the F1s all the same, and the F2s all different? Let me use another example: A couple years ago I made a hybrid between two tomatoes. One, Matt's Wild Cherry is (as you might guess...) a cherry tomato. The other, Black Krim, is not a cherry tomato. The cherry trait is controlled by a single gene: Have one or more copies of the dominate version (C) of this gene, and you make cherry tomatoes. Have two copies of the recessive version (c) and you make big fruits. So I made my two tomatoes have sex, and they had a bunch of little F1 babies. Each F1 got a copy of each gene from each of the parents. From Matt's Wild Cherry they got the dominate version C, and from Black Krim, the recessive version c. So all the F1 plants had one C and one c, and since C is dominate, they were all cherry tomatoes. I then crossed the different F1 plants with each other to produce the F2 generation. Now each F1 has one copy of C and one of c, so when they make babies, they randomly choose just one of the versions of the gene (sometimes C, sometimes c) to pass on to the next generation -- meaning among the F2 plants, some will happen to get a C from both parents, some will get one C and one c, and some two copies of c – making the F2 generation a mix of cherry and full sized tomatoes.
The exact same process works for all the other genes in the tomato: There are genes for the dark color of Black Krim, genes for the sweetness and flavor of their fruit, how they grow, when they flower, and so on. All the F1 plants are the same with exactly one version of each gene from each parent, but the F2 will be a wild mix of all the different possible combinations of the different genes from the two parents.
And why should you care? Well, seed companies use this all the time to their advantage. When they are developing a new variety of tomato, they need it to be uniform – all the seedlings need to look the same (if you buy a packet of Early Girl seeds, and some plants came out as cherries, and others yellow, you wouldn't be too pleased, now would you?) The easiest way to make a variety uniform is inbreeding: Cross closely related plants each generation and you'll eliminate genetic variation resulting in perfect uniformity. But just as it isn't smart to marry your sister, inbred plants have problems (well, usually – some plants, like squash, are actually fine with it). So what to do? Well, if you take two uniform, inbred lines, and hybridize them the F1 generation will be not be inbred, because it is a hybrid, but will be uniform because it is a F1. Problem solved. And even better, if a company sells F1 hybrids, you have to buy new seeds every year because if you save your own seeds, they will produce the F2 generation when all chaos breaks loose. So F1 hybrid varieties are not only an easy way to make healthy, uniform varieties, they also are a good way to ensure repeat sales (Though to be honest, people saving seeds isn't much of a concern to seed companies – the bigger issue is other seed companies using their varieties to develop similar, competing varieties, something releasing F1 hybrids makes that much harder to do.)
So that's it, really: The numbers after the F indicate what generation you are talking about, and the ones we generally care about are the F1s, which are all the same, and F2s, which are all different. I hope you now feel extremely wise.
20 December 2009
Most surreal seed packaging ever.
If you recall, I've been wildly anticipating the arrival of blue impatiens seeds I ordered off of ebay.
So when I found a pleasingly plump envelope in my mailbox today, I was thrilled. I ripped it open to find:
An invitation to a high school graduation for Southern High School in 2007.
What?
Inside the invitation was the ebay invoice, and the seeds.
Huh?
Are these blue impatiens with a high school diploma? Am I supposed to travel back in time to attend their "commencement exercises"? Do they expect a graduation present?
So when I found a pleasingly plump envelope in my mailbox today, I was thrilled. I ripped it open to find:
What?
Inside the invitation was the ebay invoice, and the seeds.
Huh?
Are these blue impatiens with a high school diploma? Am I supposed to travel back in time to attend their "commencement exercises"? Do they expect a graduation present?
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