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Plant Clinic
Monday, May 28, 2012 at 6:00AM | Share Article A clinic is defined as:
- a place or hospital department where outpatients are given medical treatment or advice, esp. of a specialist nature
- an occasion or time when such treatment or advice is given
- a gathering at a hospital bedside for the teaching of medicine or surgery
OR
- a conference or short course on a particular subject
My wife is a doctor so while she deals with "clinics" on a daily basis, I do not.
My kids had a tennis clinic last summer and so I thought why not involve myself in a clinic too.
Remember my Dyckia 'Platyphylla'? I posted about the Dyckia the first time it bloomed.
Well, it bloomed again.
Below is a close up after the flowers dry up.
There are several seeds in each pod.
Multiply the number of seeds with the number of pods and then add to that the fact that my Tillandsia balbisiana had also bloomed . . . suffice to say that's a lot of seeds.
I had planted previous batches of seeds and was relatively successful with them so I decided to share this batch of seeds with "plant newbies". Friends who have shown interest in plants but aren't as die hard as I am (yet).
Meet (L-R) Chito, Pals, Sha and Paul.
Collecting seeds from the T. balbisiana.
I've already written about growing Tillandsia from seed so I won't give details in this post. If you're interested though, you can read about it here: "From Finish to Start".
Once the Dyckia and Tillandsia seeds were collected, the containers were prepared.
Filling containers with soil.
Sterilizing the soil . . .
. . . and spreading the seeds on top.
We planted the seedlings last April 9. This is what my container looked like today.
Here is a picture of 2 month old seedlings from my May 2011 batch.
The May 2011 batch as of today. They're not evenly distributed in the picture because stray cats keep tipping over my seedling shelves resulting in the seeds mostly growing on one side of the container.
So far, everyone else's seeds have also germinated and according to them are doing good.
I think it was successful and everyone had fun. There were also some hearty laughs. I had sent out the following message. *** "yung malalim" loosely translates to "deep kind".
I guess I could have been more specific. I had meant regular microwaveable take out containers and old stockings. Not these. The stockings were technically okay, I just didn't expect them to have a design. :D
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Quick Poll Update:
I had a poll on which garden to visit on my trip to the USA. For those of you who voted, it was a tie between the San Francisco Botanical Garden and the New York Botanical Garden. Unfortunately, I did not find the time to visit either. Maybe next time.
balbisiana, chito lucero, clinic, garden, pals padilla, paul garingo, plant, plants, platyphylla, sha padilla | in Dyckia, Tillandsia
Reader Comments (13)
I really enjoyed your post and seed starting clinic. You made it very entertaining. I have to mention too the images of the seed pod and seeds are beautiful. What great photos. I noticed today that my Dyckia is blooming and it looks similar to the first image with the seed stalk. I never knew to raise the seeds. I always thought it made offset shoots to propagate. That is how I make new ones. I will try your method when the flowers fade. Learned something new!
That dyckia is amazing (your garden as well!)! And your friends have a good teacher :-D Btw, I have stray cats, wild squirrels and even stray chicken coming into my garden. They are 'terminators'!! :-Z
Once, when I was living in a flat and had no garden, I took some soil from part of the common area outside, a part that had been neglected and had nothing growing in it but a few straggly weeds and strands of grass, so I could grow some seeds on a windowsill. Being apprehensive about what the soil might have experienced during its urban lifetime, I put it in a tray in my oven (not a microwave). There was a terrible smell and, when I took it out, found most of it had solidified - a large component of even this small amount of 'soil' turned out to be tar.
And then how long will they get to flower again, considering variables constant?
What a great idea having a workshop like that at home. OK Bom I still don't know why you needed the stockings - do tell!
@ Donna: Offsets are the fastest way to propagate. Seeds take a very long time but are rewarding in terms of number. Feel free to ask me for advise, I had to skip some steps so as not to slow down the page loading.
@ Stephanie: If it wasn't for the camera, I'm not sure if my students would be smiling as much. LOL!
Terminators! Perfect term for the strays.
@ Esther: Oh no! I hope the smell cleared up fast. Looking at your blog and garden now, no one would have thought that could have happened. We do learn from our mistakes and you have an anecdote to share.
@ Andrea: Years and years, most likely. I've been told that I am very patient but aren't all gardeners that way? My D. platyphylla only bloomed for the first time last May and then again in April this year. I've been wanting to propagate more seeds and have kept my other Dyckia species in the same conditions as this one but none of them have bloomed yet.
@ Rosie: The stockings are for sowing the Tillandsia seeds. When stretched, they provide good air circulation and since they are very fine, the seeds don't fall through.
You can sort of see what they look like here.
Hi, Mr. Plantchaser.
To recall (this is beginning to look like a memo), i brought home two containers with dyckia seeds and one with fasiculata seeds (is the spelling correct?). It was only after 3 weeks that the dyckia seeds began to germinate. I'm happy to announce that they're all looking good and I hope in a years time, I would be able to place them on a different medium (with your guidance, of course).
The germination of the fasiculata seeds, however, took much longer. It was just last week that I saw little green things on the stocking.
I remember informing you on the third week that the seeds hadn't germinated yet and you told me that it would be unlikely if they'll germinate at all. At first I thought that all the seeds were goners and ready to be thrown away but I still sprayed them everyday, praying for a miracle. And they did germinate! It must be the weather I think. The first three weeks of May was all bright, hot and sunny. The fasiculata seeds' germination coincided with the rains.
The last time I tried to germinate something was when I was in grade one. Our class grew togue from monggo. We placed monggo in a cotton and watered it everyday. What an exciting time. ;-)
Seeing the dyckia and fasiculata seeds germinate arouses that same wonderment at the miracle life.
This post is awesome, Bom! What a great idea. Your dyckia posts have been so inspirational that I decided to try a few succulents. Mine is just blooming now...a beautiful, bright orange flower. Your captures of the seeds is so nice. How fun for your friends, too that you would share your love of plants and that they would have something to remember you by in the future ;)
Very fun gathering. You must be a very good and generous teacher. Oh the flower stalk was surprisingly long.
Ahahah! :D I always enjoy your posts as they're half serious and half humorous...
@ Paul: Definitely a miracle. It pays to be patient after all and for some reason that seems to be the theme that I have been encountering all week in the blogosphere.
If only the fascination with germinating monggo lasted until adulthood, I'm sure there would be more plant lovers in the world.
@ Cat: I hope your flower gets pollinated then I can look forward to you seed images. I'm sure they will be far more artistic than mine.
@ Diana: Dyckias usually give off long stalks. I can't wait for one of my agaves to bloom. That would be even taller.
@ Dona: Thanks! :-D
Your post is very entertaining and informative as usual. Sterilizing the soil in a microwave is something really new to me. It reminds me of my favorite aunt who happens to be an orchid enthusiast used a sterilized scalpel to cut an offshoot. Thanks for sharing!
@ Hardinars: Fastest way to sterilize. Plus you get to recycle all those take out microwaveable containers. :-D