Thursday, May 12, 2016

Dendroseris marginata, Kniphofia caulescens, Aloe seedlings, and Aloe seeds

Today was a busy day working with my plants! First I wanted to give a quick update on the Dendroseris marginata seedlings because they went from barely sprouting to multiple cotelydons in a couple days of leaving the Zip-lock bag.
Cute little Dendroseris marginata sprouts!
I also noticed that the Kniphofia caulescens seeds from Plant World Seeds have begun to sprout. This is one of my favorite Kniphofias, I would say second to Kniphofia northiae.
Kniphofia caulescens sprouting
I decided to go ahead and transplant the seeds into a pot so they have space to grow for a while. I lay them on the surface then covered them lightly with wet seed starting mix and gave them a misting from the hose.
Mature Kniphofia caulescens clump (image from bornagainredneck.blogspot.co.uk)
The Aloe helenae seedlings had sprouted in a plastic vegetable container which had holes on the bottom of it. Unfortunately, my propagation area has developed a gnat problem which has eaten away a lot of the roots of the seedlings. I decided to go ahead and transplant them together into a pot and work on finding a solution to my gnat problem.
Half of the Aloe helenae seedlings which still had any roots
The Aloe alooides I bought from Rancho Soledad a few months ago has begun to drop its seed. There were already a bunch on the ground beneath the spike but I decided to stick a plastic bag over the entire spike and give it a good shake to collect as many as I could. I got quite a bunch!
Aloe alooides seed spike

Aloe alooides seeds in the bag
Probably tomorrow I will go ahead and sow the Aloe bainesii seeds I collected the other day from downtown and the Aloe alooides seeds. Should be fun to start having generations of plants.





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