Rob's plants home garden plants wildlife seed photos plant sale journal topics plantlinks fun guestbook Limonium virgatum ssp. dictyocladum

 

Prehistoric-looking flower stems shooting up in early June Family plumbaginaceae Life cycle perennial Flowers light blue From seed germinate at room temperature detailed seed-starting info below Not a whole lot of information out there on this one. The few references I've found are from southern Europe, but the seed I started these from was sent to the NARGS seed exchange from Michigan - so I had some hope it would be hardy here. That hope was fading after my seedlings failed to survive the season for two years in a row – but just to show how perseverance sometimes pays off in the garden, the third try was finally successful. Maybe it was the even-better drainage I provided in the nursery area this time, perhaps it was the mild winter, but despite some frost-heaving in the winter, most of last year's seedlings survived, with their tiny spoon-shaped leaves partly turned shades of red and orange. I set a few of them out in the rock garden, where they started to bloom by mid-July. They're rather cuter than the photo above conveys.

Holding its own after several nights of hard freezes...

...and alive and kicking in late March

Post-bloom: it's a jungle out there (a tiny one0

We left this plant behind in our Pennsylvania garden (and wish it well); we don't grow it in Houston.

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Seed-starting details for this plant

2009. Seed from NARGS '08/'09 exchange. Baggy 70F (55%G, 4-8d)
2010. Same seed as above. Baggy 70F (43%G, 4-9d)
2011. Same seed as above. Baggy 70F (60%G, 5-11d)
2012. Same seed as above. Baggy 70F (10%G, 7-12d)
2013. Same seed as above. Baggy 70F (7/++ G, 10-30d)

Although viability decreases with age, some seeds remain viable for a good number of years. Easy enough to germinate and grow on.

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