Propagation by seeds is one of the ways indoor plants reproduce and is very interesting. In addition, this method of reproduction allows you to obtain new forms of plants, for example, with a different color of flowers, terry, etc.
To begin with, it is better to try to grow light annuals from seeds, they bring quick and tangible results. This, in turn, encourages many to try growing more interesting plants from seeds, such as cacti, cycads, ferns or senpoli. Seeds of rarer plants are more difficult to germinate, but it can be much more interesting.
Many perennial houseplants germinate slowly, so it can take several years before they reach significant sizes, so if you want to purchase seeds in the store, then carefully read the instructions for them, which indicate the timing of germination, planting and flowering. If you require a lot of plants, sow on a tray, otherwise you should use pots.
Buying seeds of houseplants is not a problem now. Flower or garden shops sell lung seeds in culture of asparagus, some palm trees, begonias, strelithia, gloxinium, etc. If you want to purchase seeds of rarer plants, you can do it through the online store or by ordering on the forum. It is very important to think about whether you can provide the necessary conditions for the plant, its special requirements. For example, strelicia is a beautiful plant, but it requires a lot of space and light. Also, always pay attention to the timing of sowing (for example, it is better to sow cyclamens in autumn), and the expiration dates of the seeds.
When propagating indoor plants with seeds, it is very important to properly treat the seeds. Most seeds are pre-soaked and then pickled.
- Soaking - depends on the density of the seed shell and on the moisture content of the seeds. Soak for at least a day in boiled water at room temperature, putting the seeds in two layers of a piece of gauze or bandage. Epin (1 ml of the preparation per 1 liter of water) can be added to the soaking water.
- Etching - disinfection of seeds in order to destroy infectious agents that could get on the seeds when harvested from the mother plant. Etching is carried out using a 1% solution of manganese (1 g of powder per 1 liter of water), for 20-30 minutes, but only after preliminary soaking in clean water for a day (soaking dry seeds, you can burn them). After pickling in manganese, the seeds must be washed in clean running water. In addition to manganese, you can use a 2-3% solution of hydrogen peroxide heated to 38-40 ° C (measure with a mercury thermometer), soaking is carried out for 7-10 minutes. Seed dressing can also be carried out in solutions of fungicides (fundazol, maxim, allette, chorus ).
- Bubbling - especially "non-suitable" seeds, can be prepared by this method. Bubbling is based on placing seeds in an aqueous medium saturated with oxygen. For this, an aquarium compressor is used. The seeds are wrapped or even sewn (so as not to open) in gauze or fabric (if the seeds are very small) bags, and placed in a tall vase or jar, poured with water and turned on the compressor. Bubbling for indoor plants lasts 10-12 hours. After that, the seeds can be sown.
Seed preparation for sowing - some preparation techniques, including soaking, pickling, bubbling, heat treatment.
Seed stratification - an article on the preparation of seeds that require a cold period (sometimes at subzero temperatures) before sowing.
Long-growing seeds of plants such as, for example, camellias, pandanuses, asparaguses, palms and other plants with hard skin, require pre-treatment before sowing. It consists in soaking the seeds for 3-5 days in water or scalding with steep boiling water, carefully filing the thick skin of the seed - this technique is called scarification.
A good result is given by treating the seeds with aloe juice. Intact small aloe leaves are stored for 25 days at + 3 ° C. After this time, juice is squeezed out of the leaves and seeds are soaked in it. As a result of this treatment, the seeds are pecked faster, and the flowering of plants obtained from such seeds is accelerated.
For disinfection, the soil is scalded 1-2 times with steep boiling water or simply calcined. This should not be done when sowing heather plants.
Seeding
Timing of seed sowing
Sowing dates are individual for each plant family, but for the majority they still fall on the spring period. Long-growing seeds (bauhinia, strelicia, brugmancia, cyclamens, palms, conifers) are usually sown in January-February. Rapidly germinating seeds (tamarind, hibiscus, antigonon, byumonia, sesbania large-flowered, asparagus) - in March-April, since with earlier sowing, seedlings will be pulled out due to lack of light.
Rapidly growing and early flowering plants are sown in May (for example, aquilegia for balcony floriculture). With a certain effort, you can sow seeds of indoor plants at any other time of the year, even in autumn, if you have the opportunity to provide heat and a lot of light. Additional lighting with fluorescent lamps is almost always necessary when sowing in autumn and winter, but those who have northern windowsills or windows of a different orientation, but shaded from the street, may also need additional lighting.
What to plant seeds
The traditional substrate for sowing most indoor plants is a mixture of peat and sand mixed in equal proportions, which are suitable for most seeds. Vermiculite (1/4 part) can also be added to this mixture. Do not use ready-made mixtures for growing indoor plants, since the level of nutrients in them is higher and can suppress germination, but you can use purchased earthen mixtures for seedlings.
The seeds of some plants can be planted in clean river sand (coarse and washed) and even in pure vermiculite. These substrates are not nutritious and are suitable only for those plants that can be easily transplanted, stuffed into earthen mixtures in pots, or for which it is permissible to carry out extra-root feeding, since the supply of food in the seed used by the seedling quickly runs out.
Since the most important danger to seedlings is concealed by diseases, in order to prevent the development of a "black leg," the substrate must be disinfected (warmed up in the oven or microwave).
Sowing seeds in a pot or box
You need to fill the pot or box with earth or sand and level the ground with a board or piece of hard cardboard, then gently tamper with it. Then spread the seeds over the surface as evenly as possible. Do not plant seeds too densely, otherwise you will have to thin out and plant them ahead of time, do not spare the planting areas. If the seeds are not too small or the bag does not say that they should be left in the light, sprinkle them on top with a thin layer of soil. The thickness of the soil layer should be equal to the thickness of the seeds. I.e. if the seeds are dust-like, they are not sprinkled with earth at all, if the seed is about 4 mm in diameter, then it is slightly pressed into the soil to a depth of 3-4 mm.
Now the soil needs to be moistened. If the seeds are large, you can pour from the watering can with a frequent sprinkler. If the seeds are small and almost not sprinkled with earth, you only need to moisten the crops from the spray gun so as not to erode the seeds from the ground. Cover the tray or box with a piece of glass or a plastic bag. It is better to leave a gap near the glass, and if you use a film, pierce the holes in it. Follow the instructions on the seed bag for temperature and light. Ventilate crops for half an hour at least twice a day.
Plating in peat tablets
For the convenience of gardeners and flower growers, peat pills were invented. They are blocks of pressed peat enclosed in a thin woven material. In the middle of the tablet there is a recess for the seed. These tablets are very convenient for piece large seeds (for example, asparagus, palm trees). The seed is placed in a recess and the tablet is wetted with water. It absorbs a lot of water, swells and "grows," after getting wet, the seed, if necessary, can be pressed into the loose peat. The mesh around the perimeter of the tablet does not allow it to lose shape and disintegrate, and when the seed rises and the seedlings grow up, they, together with the tablet, are completely planted in a pot. These are convenient peat tablets for those plants whose seedlings do not tolerate transplantation and root damage. Peat tablets are very loose and dry quickly, but absorb water easily, so watch for watering.
Sowing in peat pots
The method is also very convenient for both garden seedlings and indoor flowers. Soil for seedlings is poured into peat pots, or a mixture of peat and sand in equal parts, the height of the earth may not reach the edge of the pot 1 cm. Then one seed is planted, or several (usually in flowering crops). Pots are made up on a common tray, the earth is watered from a watering can or moistened with a spray bottle. You can cover the pots with a bag or glass, not forgetting to ventilate.
Crop care
Crop care consists in periodic spraying or careful watering from a pallet, wiping sweaty glasses, and easy airing.
Especially carefully you need to make sure that there is no overfilling or waterlogging of the soil. Even succulent plants that do not tolerate waterlogging in adulthood do not tolerate overdrying in the seedling stage. The inoculations are moistened only with water whose temperature is 2-3 ° C higher than room temperature. The temperature of the land with crops depends on the species needs. Some plants germinate well at an average of 22-26 ° C, some need a higher temperature of 30-32 ° C. In this case, you can maintain this temperature by placing a pot or a box of seeds on a battery or electric heating pad.
When seedlings appear, the glass is partially or completely removed and the plants are placed closer to the light, but the first 1-2 days are shaded from direct sunlight.
The intensity of exposure depends on the family, genus and even species of plants, and is selected individually. In any case, you need to carefully monitor the seedlings: signs of lack of light are slow growth and strong stretching of the sprout. In autumn-winter, the exposure time of plants should be approximately 12-16 hours, in spring-summer from 6 to 12 hours (depending on natural illumination). Sometimes, for a group of plants, not one lamp is needed, or even two, but three or four. Additional illumination should be organized so that the seedlings are illuminated evenly from all sides. Most often, the light source is located on top, at a distance of 5 cm (cacti and succulents) to 20 cm (leaf room, for example, palm trees). If the lamp is compact, on a regular base, then it can be illuminated with a small round plate with seedlings. If the seeds are planted in a box, it is better to use a long lamp (tube).
In addition to watering and lighting, some seedlings need special care - removal of the seed coat. This is usually necessary for seedlings that have large seeds, in a dense shell. When a sprout appears, the cracked seed coat gradually "slices" from the cotyledon leaves. But if it dries out a lot, it can stick to the rolled leaves. Sometimes she gradually slides herself, if she is often moisturized, sometimes she needs help, pick up and remove using a toothpick or cotton swab. If such "caps" are not removed in time, then the seed membranes cover the light so necessary for the shoots, and the cotyledonous leaves, growing under them, deform.
Pickling seedlings
To form a strong root system, a dive is carried out when growing seeds. Diving is carried out when seedlings develop 1 or 2 pairs of real leaves, much less often it is carried out in the stage of development of cotyledonous leaves (for example, if a pot accidentally fell). Pick 1-3 times, each time the plants are transplanted into a more nutritious earth mixture. There are plants that do not tolerate picking, but there are plants that require 4-5 picks for better growth. If there are such features, then read about it in the encyclopedic section.
Dive plants with a pointed peg (can be made from a simple pencil). The technique is as follows: with one hand the pegs are stuck into the ground near the seedling, and with the other hand the grunt seedling is slightly lifted. You can take out the seedling with a special dive fork (this is such a stick, bifurcated at the end), but in any case, this must be done very carefully so as not to break the stem. If the earth mixture is stuck together, and the seedlings do not lend themselves well to the ground, then it is better to gently shake it out along with the soil and free the roots from the substrate on the table. Then, in the ground, in a new pot, a deep hole is made and the root system is placed there so that the roots do not bend. Then use a stick to squeeze the earth around the roots. Dipping is carried out in moderately wet ground, and dipping plants are sprayed. For better rooting for 1-2 days, pickled seedlings can be covered with a cap (cut off from a plastic bottle) or placed in a bag (straighten the edges, but not tie), and also protected from direct sun. You can spray seedlings using phytostimulants - epin, zircon, amulet, see phytohormones.