Lobelia (crystal palace) - starting seeds - questions about transplant

[red-hen]

Hi all,

Last year I found one single lobelia plant hidden in the reject bin at the local walmart and I scooped it up. It was such a tremendous little plant. I adored it's tiny blue flowers so much.

So this year, when I saw a seed packet, I grabbed it. I was really shocked at how tiny the seeds are. They're like dust!

Well, I got some jiffy peat pellets ready and I spread the dust-like seeds over the top and sort of tapped them down lightly. I didn't think they'd all grow ... but ... they HAVE! LOL. Now I have what looks like mossy topped jiffy pellets.

So my question is ... are they supposed to be grown as individual plants - like one seed to a jiffy pellet - from one little seed? Or do they like being all bunched up? Can I transplant all these hundreds of crowded little seedlings after grow some? (I've created a monster, I know it - I never thought they'd grow so easy! I shouldn't have spread them on like peanut butter on a jiffy pellet ... but it is awfully cute. )

Thanks for any tips. I dont want to waste any. I can plant some in every flower bed and container I have if they all continue to grow well.

 

[patandchickens]

Ah yes. It is more or less physically impossible to sow individual lobelia seeds, as you have found out It's good to strive to sow as few as possible per pot -- although I have *not* found the traditional suggeston of mixing the seeds w/sand or fine peat to be of any help, personally -- but yeah, you still end up with clumps of 'moss' (good description!)

What I do, which is what mom does, which is what her grandmother did, which works reasonably well is to thin each pot down to a smaller number of clumps by scratching an X or a tic-tac-toe grid across the moss to kill swaths of it. I do it with a fingernail and try to make reasonably broad swaths of destruction. I have also heard of people 'rubbing out' all but a small central clump.

They will still grow as multiple plants standing on top of each other all tangled together, but that is okay, they do fine that way and if you look at the ones they sell in stores they look that way too <g>.

In fact I will be doing the above to my own in a couple weeks

Good luck,

Pat, who counts Crystal Palace lobelia as one of the very very few annuals she likes enough to bother actually growing

 

[red-hen]

Thanks so much for the great info! I'll give this a try. How big should they be when I do this?

Glad to hear I'm not the only lobelia fan.

 

[patandchickens]

I am not sure it matters how big they are. It's not an exact science, it's just mass destruction I usually do it once most of the seeds seem to be well up, on the theory that it's better to do it early and let the survivors get an earlier shot at the freed-up space etc. But I don't, like, scientifically know when is best.

Pat

 

[warren]

I let them grow until they are about a quarter of an inch high and then separate them into small clumps. I fill a tray with compost, smooth it over and then make rows of dents in it and place the clumps in these dents. It takes a lot of patience and nimble fingers. It is ok to have 5-10 seedlings in each clump.

 

[red-hen]

Thanks Warren. Well now I have two ways to tackle this.

I'm going to try to separate them like you did, Warren - that way I'd have even more plants. But if my patience wears out, I'll go with the mass destruction scratching plan