Sowing Ranunuculus Seeds
Hello friends,
Three weeks ago I finally got around to sowing the ranunculus seeds I bought from Bud & Bloom back in January. The seeds don't germinate in hot weather, so I had to wait until late March when we start to get cooler mornings.
I pulled out my new seed sowing tray protector and got to work. I'm so pleased that I invested in buying it earlier this year, as it cuts down on mess big time, and it's so much easier to sow seeds.
I sowed one seed per cell, and gently covered each ranunculus seed with vermiculite as suggested in the instructions that came with the seeds. I gave them a good watering and stored all the seed trays undercover in the woodshed where it is cool for most of the day.
Now came the patiently waiting part, as ranunculus are notoriously slow at germinating, usually taking 2 - 3 weeks to germinate. Each day I checked on the seed trays and kept the vermiculite damp.
Two weeks after seed sowing, a single ranunculus seedling popped it's head above the vermiculite, and then another and another over the next few weeks.
Quite a few seedlings have come up now, and they are slowly growing in their seed sowing cells. Over the coming weeks they'll grow their underground root systems, and then as the weather gets even cooler, the plants will grow more leaves. I can't want to see lots of ranunculus plants flowering in spring this year.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Dahlia Profile - Lucky Number Seedlings
Hello friends,
Today we're looking at dahlia seedlings that I grew from Lucky Number dahlia seeds I harvested back in the summer of 2024.
First up we have the original Lucky Number dahlia. It's a peony dahlia with multiple rows of bright pink petals, with yellow centers. Each flower is about the width of my palm. Lucky Number gets to about 1 metre in height with bright green leaves and brown stems.
And here are the progeny of my Lucky Number dahlia.
This first one is a single dahlia with colours of peach and yellow in the petals, and a smaller flower than Lucky Number. The dahlia plant is similar in size to Lucky Number, but the stems are much darker in colour. My hunch is that this dahlia is a cross between Lucky Number and my Mystic Sparkler dahlia in the garden.
The second dahlia is pretty similar to the first dahlia, but the petal colours are a much darker pink, and there is an uneven mottling across the flower petals. The flowers are much bigger than Lucky Number in size, and I think this dahlia is a cross between Lucky Number and a red hybrid tree dahlia that grew in my garden in 2024, from seed that I purchased from NZ dahlia breeder Keith Hammett. The hybrid tree dahlia was bright red in colour with huge single flowers similar to this seedling.
The third seedling is definitely another cross between Lucky Number and the red hybrid tree dahlia. The petal colour is exactly the same as the red tree dahlia, but has rows of petals similar to Lucky Number, and the plant as a whole is similar to Lucky Number in size and colour.
And last up is a Lucky Number seedling that looks like a smaller cross of the third seedling. The flower is much smaller, and the red a bit more scarlet. I think this is also a cross with the red hybrid tree dahia.
It was an interesting experiment to grow seeds from the Lucky Number dahlia, and right now I'm unsure if I will keep any of the seedlings, as space is always at a premium in my garden. I'll make a decision in the coming weeks on what to do with these dahlias, and then tag them for digging up or keeping them once the first frost has passed.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Dahlia Profile - Floret Bee's Choice Flowers
Hello friends,
Today's dahlia profile is for my Floret Bee's Choice flowers. I bought dahlia and zinnia Floret flower seeds from Emerden in New Zealand last spring, and sowed them in October.
From Floret's Website: "Floret Bee's Choice was collected from all of our different dahlia breeding patches on the farm and includes a wide range of shapes, sizes, and colors—no two plants will be the same! Most of the flowers will have open centers, which will attract lots of pollinators to your garden. If you discover a variety you love, tubers can be saved and planted out the following year." Planted in full sun, plants will reach 48 to 72 in tall.
Floret 1:
Floret 2:
Floret 3:
Floret 4:
Floret 7:
Floret 8:
Floret 10:
As you can see from the Floret Bee's Choice dahlias that have flowered so far, dahlias 1, 2, 3, 4, and 8 all have yellow/orange colouring, with a range of petal numbers, with dahlias 3 and 8 having extra frills. Dahlias 7 and 10 are shades of pink, with dahlia 7 has curled inward petals, and dahlia 10 being pretty plain.
In terms of choosing which dahlias to keep at the end of the season, the only one I definitely want to keep is dahlia 3, with it's yellow/apricot colouring and pretty frills. I'm also kind of tempted by dahlia 8, but I'll see how it looks as the season goes on.
I have really enjoyed the process of dahlia growing from seed, watching the process from germination, to flowering, and I'll definitely collect seed from them in autumn.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Floret Dahlia and Zinnia Sowing
Hello friends,
A couple of weeks ago I sowed my zinnia and dahlia seeds from Floret, that I purchased from Emerden in New Zealand. And yes, if you may have noticed, I ended up ordering a third zinnia variety from Floret, their Unicorn Mix.
I sowed all the seeds in dome propagating trays, along with dahlia varieties including seeds from my favorite Lucky Number dahlia growing in my garden, and also two Keith Hammett dahlia varieties (NZ dahlia breeder), NZ Gardener mix (from the NZ gardener magazine), and also Dahlia Beeline II. I'm considering crossing the Keith Hammett and Floret dahlias to see if I can come up with a new amazing variety.
The seedlings all popped up super quick while living in our warm dining room, and within a couple of weeks they were ready to be potted on into bigger individual pots with potting mix. The seed sowing strike rate was higher than advertised on the packets, so I'm really happy with the investment.
They're now safely growing in my glass house, and are covered in frost cloth each night for protection. I can't wait for when they get big enough to plant out in the garden.
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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Rose Pruning and Seed Sowing Round 1
Hello friends,
We're over halfway through winter now, and it's time to prune roses, and to also start seed sowing for the coming spring. My first job was to prune the roses, since I'd noticed that some of them had started breaking their buds, so I didn't have choice but to prune them early.
In the front garden I have roses including Blackberry Nip (Hybrid Tea), Aotearoa (HT), Celebration (HT), Happy Birthday (Floribunda, a birthday gift from my aunt), and My Girl (HT). They were all pruned using my grandad's tried and trued rose pruning advise. It's basically the 5D method, which is to remove the dead, dying, diseased, and damaged, and deranged plant tissue, and then trim for shaping, so that it looks like an open vase shape, with no branches that go toward the center of the rose bush.
In the end they looked much better for their pruning, and I'll fertilise them closer to spring.
Once that was done, it was time to trim the back garden roses. Our banksia rose, The Pearl, is a thorn-free climbing rose which trails along one length of the back garden. We planted the banksia rose once we found out that one of the neighbour's subdivided their backyard, and that a house was going to be built right next to our fence line. I've been training the banksia rose along the whole length of the fence line in the last couple of years, and over summer, when we tend to be out in the garden more, it provides a green wall of privacy for us.
Trimming the banksia rose basically just involved a lot of taking out the overgrown branches back to the main branches, and then tying up the lengths further along the fence line. It will still be a couple of years before it reaches all the way along the fence.
The last job was to take a look at my two Damask roses Isaphan and Duc de Cambridge. I bought them for collecting their scented flowers, which are used in rose oil and rose water production. They don't require any pruning in the first years until they become established, but there were some dead stems on them, so I pruned those off.
Next up was to start seed sowing, so I pulled out my flower seed containers and pulled out my packets of sweet peas and homegrown Calendula officinalis seeds.
I sowed the following Keith Hammett sweet peas: Blue Shift, Blue Butterflies, Burlesque, Liqourice, NZ Gardener, Somewhere, Sapphire, Triple G, and Turquoise Lagoon.
I also sowed seeds I collected from the Calendula officinalis plants I grew last summer. It's so rewarding to collect your own seed, and then grow new plants from them. Since then both my sweet peas and calendula seeds have sprouted, and I'm currently in the process of repotting them.
Spring is nearly here, and I'm very excited to be sowing seed nearly every day over the next couple of months. I'm itching to sow my tomato and chilli plants now, but want to hold off for another week at least. I need to balance when they need to go into the ground in the glasshouse, versus when I can plant all the other seedlings growing in the glasshouse into the garden. Our last frost was the first week of November last year, and it was very stressful having to frost proof so many seedlings...
Have a wonderful day
Julie-Ann
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