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Clicking through one of our banner ads or some of our text links and making a purchase will produce a small commission for us from the sale. Growing Geraniums from Seed - 2009
If you have the right conditions, growing seed geraniums (geraniums from seed) is relatively easy. Seed geraniums have the advantage of not carrying disease forward as propagating from leaf cuttings can do. And with seed geraniums, you're not limited to just propagating varieties you have, but have the full spectrum of seed geraniums that are available from seed catalogs.
Important note: See below for an advisory about hard seed, germination rates, and geranium seed vendors. December 1, 2008 With the first snow of the season upon us, I decided it was a good time to get started with this project. My Stokes Seeds catalog recommends starting seed by December 20 for blooming plants (in 4" pots) by May 10.
I moisten one side of a paper towel section and space the seeds on it. Since we have soft water at our house, I use cold water (bypasses the water softener) heated a bit in our teapot to moisten the paper towel. I'm not sure the salt in soft water could hurt the seeds, but I also don't want to take the chance. You'll notice that some varieties of geranium seed are white, while others are dark. Although the assortment from Thompson & Morgan was supposed to have 5 seeds of each variety, the packets varied in number from a minimum of 6 to one packet that contained 15 seeds. The extra seed(s) is often included to make sure your results match any germination test percents marked on the seed packet.
If most of these seeds germinate, I'm going to end up with more geraniums than I really want. I went ahead and used all of the seed, but do be aware that you can freeze geranium seed for a year or so and not lose much viability. I still have one packet of 20 ivy type geranium seeds on order. When it comes in, I'll start just a few of the seeds (5-6) and put the rest in the freezer until next year. The four pack and all the bagged geranium seed then went downstairs to my plant room. My heating mat is under my plant lights, so I wrapped the plastic bags in a opaque trash bag before putting them on the mat. The four pack went into a half size plant tray with a clear dome to retain the moisture. Since I'd covered the seed in it with peat moss, I didn't have to do anything to block the light. You want to maintain a temperature of 72-76o F for the seed, so a heating mat of some type may well be necessary. My heating mat came from Park Seed a few years ago and is still available there. They also have a cheaper mat without the metal frame that comes in several sizes. The best geranium germinating area I ever used was in a rental house that had a closet with a heat duct through it and shelves. It kept my geranium seed warm and dark.
Germination may begin in just 4-5 days or string out as long as 21 days, according to various seed catalog cultural information. To be safe, definitely start checking your seed by the fifth day. I'll probably check mine tomorrow, also, to see if I got enough moisture on the paper towels. You definitely don't want your expensive seed to dry out or for the roots to grow into your paper towel. If the roots do penetrate your paper towel, you'll have to tear it and transplant some of it with the new seedlings. There's a good video tutorial on germinating seed on paper towels on YouTube: Germinating seeds in paper towels. I really thought I'd learned the trick of germinating my geranium seed on paper towels from Crockett's Victory Garden (1977), but couldn't find it in any of my books by Crockett. When I did an online search, I found that lots of folks use this method. December 4, 2008 - Reason Sets In As I checked the moisture levels on the seed geraniums yesterday, I began to calculate the space I'll need under plant lights if I do get 80% or better germination. In one of those "What could I have been thinking" moments, I realized that the pack of 30 seeds, which turned out to have more than 45 seeds, the other packet of ten seeds, and another packet of 20 (still on order of which I'll plant only 5-6 and freeze the rest) will overwhelm my relatively small capacity under four fluorescent shop lights! A couple of the packages of seeds seemed not as wet as I'd like them, so I added about half a teaspoon of water to each. December 6, 2008
I've not grown the ivy-leaf type of geranium before, but this variety is supposed to be a "true cascading, base branching" type that should be ideal for hanging baskets for our back porch next summer. I also checked my previous planting of seed geraniums, but saw no action other than the seeds swelling just a bit and showing the beginnings of a sprout getting ready to emerge. In a few more days (9-10 from seeding), many of the sprouts should have emerged and be ready to be moved to pots of sterilized potting soil.
December 20, 2008 Oh, no! I've had a sinking feeling every time I've checked the geranium seed lately. Just one seed has germinated! If I weren't using seed from three different sources, I'd say I got some bad seed. But with three suppliers, it has to be my culture or practices. While I haven't thrown any of the seed out, I have started some more seed (Summer Showers variety that I'd stored in the freezer). My guess is that I let the seed dry out. The sandwich bags don't hold the moisture as well as the freezer bags do. But I did have two or three bunches of seeds in freezer bags that didn't germinate either. Any economy in this project is now out the window. I just sent a panic order to Stokes Seeds for a couple more packets of seed. January 31, 2009
I moved plants out of fourpack cells where there was more than one plant today. I also changed my potting mix to include less lime and am now adding a bit of bone meal (can't hurt). February 21, 2009
When I extract the plants from the fourpack, I do break off the potting soil at the bottom (and the sides, if necessary) until the roots just barely show. Then I center them in the pot, being careful to both not break the stem, but to also firm the soil around the plant. Since I use so much peat moss in my soil mix, I do have to heat some water on the stove so that the peat will pick up the water from a rather heavy bottom watering. I put about two inches of water in the bottom of the seed tray. Note that it's actually a doubled tray, the top one with holes and the bottom without holes. Using two trays aids drainage, but more importantly adds some strength to the trays. The geraniums will stay in these pots until they are transplanted into the garden, flower beds, and planters. March 30, 2009 Our geraniums moved outside under the cold frame last week. The came inside last night, as we had an overnight low of around 28 o F and some frost. They're pictured below on their way back out to the cold frame this morning. After nearly driving myself nuts trying to figure out what I was doing wrong with our seed geraniums this year, and as you can see above, I do commit some real blunders, I discovered that the seed we'd purchased from trusted seed vendors Stokes and Twilley Seed was either hard seed or simply bad. Hard seed as defined by The Free Dictionary is:
And as I wrote in a blistering rant on my Senior Gardening blog, "Any hard seed without an appropriate warning from the vendor is, in my opinion, bad seed." It's also a giant breach of trust. At this point, I really can no longer recommend one seed vendor over another for geranium seed based on my current experiences. I do recommend doing a small germination test if you have enough seed. If not, I'd go ahead and scarify any geranium seed before planting to achieve a somewhat decent germination rate. It's not terribly difficult, and The Brown Thumb has a good page of instructions on Seed Scarification, Seed Stratification & Seed Soaking. I finally compiled our various blogs on growing geraniums from seed into one how-to, Growing Geraniums from Seed. From the
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