Horticultural Resources: Seed germination

Finding actionable information on seed germination is perhaps one of the most frustrating parts of exploratory horticulture.

It makes sense that species that don't even have a Wikipedia page will have sparse internet presence.  It also makes sense that difficult to find species will have an even harder time finding actual propagation instructions.  After all, germination information is an interactive thing - knowledge built upon knowing the plant even exists.

What is particularly frustrating however is the surprising lack of information what otherwise should be at least exist somehow.  But likely doesn't.  Germination information for Marula is more difficult to find than it has any right to be, but good luck finding anything on Willughbeia or Wrightia or Tamilnadia.

Over time, I've collected some internet resources that makes everything easier

Useful Tropical Plants: (by far the most pertinent)
http://tropical.theferns.info/

Kew (Royal Botanical Gardens), Seed Information Database: (second most useful)
http://data.kew.org/sid/sidsearch.html

Thompson & Morgan
http://www.ourgardengang.com/Seed%20Germination%20DB.htm
http://ourgardengang.tripod.com/Seed%20Germination%20DB.htm

Tom's Seed Germination Database:
http://tomclothier.hort.net/page02.html

Chilean Species:
http://www.chileflora.com/Florachilena/FloraEnglish/E_Germination.htm

USDA "'Seed Germination, Theory and Practice' by Norm Deno":
http://www.jlhudsonseeds.net/Germination.htm

The Seed Site:
http://theseedsite.co.uk/germination.html

Thymewilltell:
http://www.thymewilltell.com/seeds.html

Boesenbergia Pandurata: Chinese Fingerroot

Got this stuff .... looks interesting.  It's in the Zingiberaceae ginger family, so it's probably relatively easy to grow.  It's also called Chinese Fingerroot.

Here it it coming up a couple of weeks after being put in soil:

Sorry for rotate.  You can see one spike in each pot

Took a few more days, but it got here:

Much more obviously a ginger type

It looks like it's closer to curcuma/turmeric than zingiber/ginger.

A week later:

So it's probably not going to be nearly as large as turmeric plants.

But still interesting to see.

Amazing Gesneriad: Deinostigma tamiana

The Deinostigma is a relative of African violets in the Gesneriaceae family.  Native to Vietnam and southern China.  It was recently removed from the Primulina genus.

The growing inflorescence actually survived shipping:

The leaves have incredibly long petioles, and with higher humidity, might be easier to keep rigid.

They don't like drying out, but in lower light are quite undemanding.  It shares approximately the same placement as the Gloxinella, although in the wild they're probably quite different.

So the bloom is quite pretty, and very clearly gesneriad:

So something for the botanists - this specimen is particularly unique in a weird way - the infloresence actually continues to grow during bloom

Yes that's right - you're probably used to an unopened flower reaching its finally location and then opening.  This specimen decides to hoist it higher ....

Quite amazing, really.

These blooms can stay on for a bit, sometimes a whole week.

This picture is about five days after the previous

The leaves accumulate damage relatively easily, but otherwise the plant seems easy-going enough.

Gloxinella lindeniana: Amazing Gesneriad

I don't have a crazy story behind this one, just found the leaves to be incredible.  It screams "delicate".

Gloxinella lindeniana

While physically substantial enough to be nearly self supporting structurally, the leaves are *really* light, and nearly translucent.  To illustrate how wildly different plant leaves can be, here it is next to a Ludisia discolor orchid:

After it gets tall enough, it starts putting out flowers, or what I first thought were flowers:

It should be noticeable by now just how over-leveraged the roots seem to be.  That tiny little pot can't be more than 2 inches.  I've kept this thing out of direct sunlight and considering what is known about such delicates, I'm assuming it's actually a rather low-light plant.  It's been flourishing in a west window that doesn't actually get sun .... inside.

Those flower things are kinda mesmerizing.

I kinda left it alone for a bit - low light and medium humidity means it's probably slow growing and I'm ok with that.  Oh boy was I surprised:

Huh.  So that really how it flowers.  Gotta wait for the flowers to open.

Here's a different view for the internet crowd watching:

And here finally the bloom opens:

The blooms seem to last a couple of days for me, but I'm not gonna give it any grief.

Time passes and here it looks about 2 months later:

So, it seems to need staking for support - it might actually be etiolated from light level too low even for this forest floor specimen.  In any case, the root system was small enough and non-aggressive enough that all I had to do was transplant the whole soil plug into a general houseplant potting mix.

Minor caveat - for whatever reason, the generic potting soil wasn't sold as "high drainage" the way that cactus soil is.  Put it's a lot lighter and more aerated than what I expected.

I have also never waited more than 3-4 days to rewater Gloxinella.  It is probably not even remotely drought hardy.

Horseradish: Armoracia rusticana

Saw it in the grocery store.  Noticed a couple of little green bumps obviously serving as potential grow points.  Why not?

Kept it in a tall glass, and put it outside in on a shaded porch.  Changed out the water if it got gross.  After a week or so, i found this little green growth:

Notice the water line

Eventually, the leaves flushed out:

I've noticed that compared to carrot, beet, rutabaga and others, horseradish root doesn't seem too vulnerable to water-rot.  I still need to change out the water, but the hard root seems unperturbed by submergence.

At a certain point, it becomes obvious that the root structure belongs in soil rather than pure H20.  Here it is transferred:

The leave margin curl seems to correspond precisely with this transfer.  Due to lowered average state of root moisture, there *will* be some transplant shock, and I eventually lost a couple of leaves.  It's also obviously a bit harder to keep watered.

I've kept it out of midday sun, and despite the supposedly slower growth .... one night it seemed to suddenly double in size:

It's already bigger than this

I'm not sure what my end goal is, but this definitely seems to have been worth the project effort.

Update:  yup, still growing a week later:

Solana melongena: Eggplant: Ratna

"Normal" plants for me are hard.   Tomato, basil, herbs, zucchini, cukes ... etc .... terrible luck.

So I bought a 4 dollar Ratna Eggplant from a local farmers market.  Yay.

Near the beginning:

Nice black loam

Yay it grew flowers

Here.  We.  Go!

So summers here can get a bit too hot if I'm not able to water every day.  It's been attacked by aphids, and I've failed to water it.  It literally looked dead when I checked again.

Soil was bone dry.  Leaves were actually still soft, although looked dead.  Guess what it looked like the next morning?

Honestly, I'm kinda impressed.  This plant seriously wants to live.  And look ... an eggplant!

Gasteria "Flow" pup

I have a coworker that got a windowsill succulent .... and over time it never really died.  It's a Gasteria "flow" and the internet tells me that it's a hybrid between a gasteria and aloe. 
"Botanical name: Gasteria Verrucosa x Aloe Hybrid PPAF" ... something like that.

Of course, I had to tend to it .... and guess what comes up?  A tiny pup detaches too easily, and now I'm stuck holding a piece of this plant.

Not much to it.  I sort of origami folded a paper swaddle for it
Taped it together with .... tape.  Wetted the paper towel from time to time

Over time, the root turned from nothing to this:

Those roots are more durable than they appear but don't risk breakage

Now later it looks like this:

Nice and plump leaves

Curcuma Longa: Small Turmeric

Growing grocery store turmeric (smallish orange ones):

Kinda obvious that I'm going here.  I did add Daconil fungicide

I actually shook these up a little before moving them outside.
I didn't like the idea of truly exposed rhizome, even in the bag

Over time ..... they didn't seem to want to grow.  I think grocery stores or the suppliers spray them with something.  Gingers take a while to break their dormancy - think weeks long - but if it rots first, something is going wrong.  In fact, I got frustrated, and through them in a throwaway ziploc bag and forgot about them.  They were stuck in this same ziploc bag out of the way ... and then I found them again.

Probably a month later

Oh my god, really?

Really??  Of course the other one rotted.  Who knows.

Me being me, not growing that would be risking getting struck by lightning ... so in a pot it goes.

Literally says small turmeric

Turmeric rhizomes sprout enormously large leaves compared to their own size, so it'll be repotted eventually.

Boophone Disticha

It's currently just a dormant bulb, but why not show the set up?  Will be updated later

That's a actually the plumeria bag right behind it

Ludisia Discolor: Jewel Orchid

These things have amazing foliage.  I guess that's really what makes me like orchids.

They're chilling out on a shady windowsill.  Relatively dry.  I might consider moving them and adding more humidity.  Sadly, the smaller darker one was munched on by something on the trunk, which infected it :-(

I'm trying to water-root a cutting of it.  Probably doesn't work, but I'm trying anyway.

Ludisia discolor var. nigrescens

Ludisia discolor

Durian

Species: Durio zibethinus

I found a fresh durian at an Asian superstore.  I couldn't help it.  It was too sharp and pungent to really enjoy, but I swear if scientists ever breed one with out that sharp almost-metallic edge, it'll be a lot more popular.  Honestly, the texture would be thought of as much less disfavorable, too.  Of course, I'm saving the seeds.

So about the plant: the internationally-available cultivar of Durian is famous for being *incredibly tropical*.  Some internet people swear it stops growing below 70F.

Here's Purdue.U's horticulture department telling us even Sri Lanka has problems growing it.

Here's another website that clearly tells you it's difficult.

Alright let's do this:

Oh no!  One of those things!

Oh god why ... in my house!

What is wrong with me

Did you think i'd store it any other way?

Like everything else.  I was a bit nervous about this step

Carefully arranged.  Very little soil.  Perlite.  Fungicide.

After stashing the container outside (but out of the sun), it took literally
24 hours for nature's most horrific fruit seeds to pop break seed coat.

Next day.

Turns out durian seeds aren't actually overly whiny - room temperature water
didn't stop them from successfully coming alive and breaking their seed shell

Point of interest: durian seeds are relatively soft.  Be careful when scraping off the meat of the durian stuff - best not to risk scratching open the seed before the seed is ready.

Plumeria

As of this post, I have two plumeria.  One two-branch I picked up at the NC State Farmers Market years ago, and a cutting I got from Katsura Garden, Japantown SF from this year's family vacation.

These plants are paradoxically difficult yet impossible to kill.  I used to have a third one what was literally lifted up and thrown by a thunderstorm .... so who knows.  The storms literally just snapped the inflorescence and I've been bitter about that ever since.  Same specimen didn't overwinter successfully, so I'm still sour about it :-(

Their footprints are weirdly small for their height, although that may just be my reluctance to repot something that works.

Bigger one first:

Breaking Dormancy.  Literally watered it a total of once all winter,
 and even then I made sure all of the soil went dry again

Here it is coming along, week or so later:

Oh yeah look at that second branch go!

A little bit more:

Week or two later, with leaves

The cutting was a bit more difficult.  This is how it started:

Those bump are tiny nuggets of "maybe"

Originally, I tried to get it to go by putting it outside in late spring weather, in a mix of soil and perlite.  Obviously, with some added rooting hormone.

That really didn't work, and the cutting started to lose its green.  I then switched to Saran wrap.  Took the cutting out of the soil, washed everything off, re-cut the bottom, and let it sit away from bright light on my kitchen counter for a day.  After it calloused over, I sprayed the bottom of it with fungicide, gave the bottom area another coat of rooting hormone, a few spritz of water, and then wrapped Saran Wrap around the bottom part.  Secured it with a rubber band, and then placed it on a windowsill.

The buds actually started to get a little bigger, but a millimeter of growth in a month is ridiculously slow even for plumeria.  I even had to change it's Saran wrap diaper twice.  And then a couple of the tiny leaf-buds turned black.

I then switched to the "ziploc bag" method, and just stuck the dang thing in a ziploc bag full of lightly humidified soil, and rubber banded it securely.  Then set it outside in a relatively shady area away from sun.

Hiding away on a balcony shelf

Eventually, it looked like this:

Which means it's at least trying, which is good news. A couple of days later:

So even the tiniest of plumeria leaf grow is gravitropic.

Hmm.  Let's see if I can play with that:

Update:  A few days later: