Showing posts with label Aloe alooides. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Aloe alooides. Show all posts

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.