Planting Tips

Chapter 23 How to grow flowers at home by sowing
One or two-year-old flowers in the open field and indoor potted flowers, such as clivia, asparagus, cyclamen, etc., are often propagated by sowing.Strong and fresh seeds on good mother plants should be selected.

Some seeds are difficult to absorb water because of their hard seed coats, so they often need to be treated to facilitate germination.Seeds of flowers such as canna and lotus need to be peeled off or incised; cyclamen, sweet pea, wisteria and other seeds should be soaked in warm water (40-60°C) or cold water for 1-2 days before sowing, which can promote germination .In order to prevent the spread of pests and diseases, the seeds should be disinfected by soaking in 0.1% mercury liter, 0.3% copper sulfate or 1% formalin solution for 3-5 minutes, then rinsed with clean water and then sowed.Sowing time, spring sowing in the open field should be after the late frost, autumn sowing can be in early September.The amount of seeding for family gardening is small, so seedlings can be sown indoors in seeding pots in advance, and after the flowering seedlings grow to a certain size, they can be planted outdoors or in flower pots.Shallow pots or mud pots with larger diameters are commonly used for sowing, and the soil is easy to dry if the pot is too small.The best soil for sowing is loose, well-drained and air-permeable.After the gravel and gravel are placed on the bottom of the pot, culture soil is placed, and the top layer is covered with washed river sand as a seeding layer.Cover with fine sand after sowing, and the thickness of the sand is 9 to 2 times the diameter of the seed.Very small seeds such as cineraria, gloxinia, cattailwort, perennial primrose and begonia can be mixed with soil and removed without covering soil after sowing.Do not water directly after sowing. It is best to use the soaking method to water so as not to wash away the seeds.

After the soil is soaked, cover the pot with a piece of glass and cover the glass with newspaper for shading to maintain the temperature and humidity in the pot. Turn the glass over once a day to ventilate the pot and remove water droplets on the glass.The seeding pots should be placed in direct sunlight and kept at a room temperature of 15-25°C to facilitate germination.If the temperature is too low, the emergence will be slow and the seeds will rot easily.If the temperature is too high, the seedlings are prone to leggy growth.After emergence, the glass and newspaper should be removed in time, and gradually moved to a sunny place.Depending on the dryness and humidity of the pot soil, spray water in time, and transplant when the seedlings grow 2 to 4 true leaves.Later, as the seedlings grow, they are transplanted into the open field or upper pots.

(End of this chapter)