How To Prepare Flower Seeds For The Season

2024 Author: Sebastian Paterson | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-16 13:47

In recent years, a lot of planting material comes to us from abroad, there are many new varieties and hybrids of plants, agricultural techniques and means of protection. It is not easy to understand all this abundance of information, and books will be a good help here.

They certainly do not keep up with the most fashionable innovations, but they are written in a more fundamental way. Over the past 10-12 years, a huge number of foreign translated books have been published. On the one hand, this is great - there is a choice.

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On the other hand, the recommendations contained in them are designed for the European climate (mainly in England and Germany) and not everything is suitable for us. The "stumbling block" is the frost resistance of plants. What is often called "perennial" in translated literature is an annual in our country, because it will not survive our winter. When it is written "hibernates with shelter," most likely it does not hibernate in our zone, and so on.

Sometimes, when translating, foreign books are adapted, but, at best, to the conditions of central Russia. Quite often there are obvious translation mistakes, which were not noticed by either the scientific reviewer or the editor. Therefore, first of all, we advise: when buying an expensive, beautiful translation book, look through it carefully.

Pay attention not only to the printing level, but also to the text, to the style of writing (or, better to say, translation). So all the same: should novice growers buy translated editions or not? We have solved this issue for ourselves in the following way: there are several such books in our home library, and we love them very much, we often use them.

First, foreign books, as a rule, are methodically very conveniently compiled, in them everything is "laid out on the shelves." With purely Western rationality, they provide a ton of useful advice on all aspects of gardening. They can also serve as excellent reference books, atlases, as they usually show a lot of plants.

In recent years, several Moscow publishing houses have begun to specialize in the publication of our, Russian, authors, and very respectable specialists are involved.

In our practice, in the case of agrotechnical problems in any culture, we turn primarily to the works of domestic authors. And, of course, "old" doesn't mean "bad" at all. An honorable place with us is occupied by books of past years (and they do not just take up space, but work) by wonderful flower growers of the Soviet period (G. E. Kiselev, I. L. Zalivsky, T. G. Tamberg, etc.). In terms of their thoroughness, the seriousness of their approach to the issue, and their professionalism, these books are unmatched today.

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Now let's turn to the topic of seeds. If you have collected the seeds on your site and still have not put them in order, there is nowhere to save further. Organize your workspace - cover the table with white paper so that every seed is visible. Lay out the necessary inventory so that everything is at hand.

This is a linen bag and a rolling pin for threshing. This is a sieve (and preferably several sieves with cells of different sizes), a colander, a flat plate. Prepare paper seed bags on which you will write the crop name and harvest year. Also have a box on hand to store the filled bags and cardboard labels for them.

We also highly recommend starting a garden magazine, which will always be with you in the summer. In it you write down what you bought, where you planted, what seeds you collected and when, brief observations of the weather, etc. In our garden, such a journal (or diary) has been kept for many years, and it is very convenient - suddenly something is needed refresh your memory. It will be very competent if you supplement your notes with brief characteristics of the colors you have, Latin names.

However, back to seed cleaning. This work is quite laborious, and in each case you need to decide how you will clean them. The simplest case is seeds in pods: decorative beans, sweet peas, lupine.

It is easy enough to work with such crops as poppy, nigella, various types of bells, carnations, lavater, malope. Bells and carnations give very small seeds, but they are clearly visible and are separated from the dust by light blowing.

Without problems, the seeds of echinacea and gelichrizum are removed from the ripe inflorescence. It is somewhat more difficult to clean the seeds of rudbeckia, pyrethrum. They carry a lot of dust and dust - here you need to use a sieve and a plate for blowing.

The seeds of the popular, beloved by many, annual cereals are quite simply collected: lagurus, breezes, setaria, falaris. You just need to let them ripen on the vine, and then the ripe spikelets are easily peeled (setaria, falaris, breeze) or plucked out (lagurus). If you are not particularly sure about the good germination of your own seeds, it is better to check them in advance so that they will not let you down in the spring.

Most annual seeds are stored at room temperature for 2 to 4 years, excluding aster. Without special treatment, its seeds do not completely, but sharply lose their germination in the second year. Perennial seeds also feel normal at room temperature, but there are a number of plants whose biology is such that it is better to store their seeds in the refrigerator, placing them in foil bags, from drying out. These are, for example, aquilegia, delphinium, mordovnik, lupine, eringium.

We also remind you that most flower crops are cross-pollinated, so it is rather difficult to collect a specific species or pure variety in an amateur environment. If you are satisfied with a variegated mixture in your flower garden (aster, zinnia, dahlias "Funny Guys", annual delphinium, annual lupine, calendula, etc.), you can well count on the seeds of your collection. If you want to have a certain variety (not to mention hybrids), in this case it is better to purchase purchased ones, of course, from a reliable company. The seed sale is in full swing right now.