Useful information

Growing flower seedlings

Maple-leaved Hibiscus Mahogany

tolerates cutting and crown shaping well,

fast growing, drought tolerant

It would seem that today there is no need to grow flower seedlings ourselves - in spring and summer, garden centers are full of the most diverse flowering seedlings for every taste. But many growers still want to get their own seedlings.

There are several reasons for this. Firstly, it is far from always possible to purchase ready-made seedlings of flowers of the desired varieties and types. Secondly, it gives someone pleasure to watch how a beautiful plant grows from a tiny seed. Thirdly, prices for ready-made seedlings often “bite”. And finally, you can not only grow much cheaper planting material yourself, but also sell its surplus or share it with friends and neighbors.

Choice of crops and sowing dates

Preparation for growing seedlings should begin in the fall. If you plan to order a batch of seeds (or rooted cuttings) from specialized firms, then do it as early as possible, preferably in the middle of autumn, in order to have time to receive the order by the required date. The end of autumn - the beginning of winter is the time to buy packaged seeds. They should be purchased from well-established firms.

The choice of crops and varieties of various companies today is huge, and some, especially beginners, flower growers by the time of sowing are simply lost in front of an impressive number of various bags, having little idea of ​​where to start. We advise, first of all, to arrange the bags according to the sowing dates.

Sowing dates for flower crops

Calendar datesFlower crops
4th week of January - 1st week of February Shabo carnation, tuberous begonia, fuchsia, heliotrope
IV week of February Viola (for flowering from mid-May), cineraria and statice
I-IV week of March Sweet peas, Drummond phlox, allspice tobacco, ageratum, alissum, arctotis, aster, verbena, gazania, hibiscus, Chinese carnation, gelichrizum, kohija, levkoy, lobelia, snapdragon, perilla, petunia, salvia
I-IV week of April

Marigolds, zinnia, amaranths, balsam balsam and Waller's balsam, acroclinum, annual dahlia, ornamental cabbage, coleus, celosia, chrysanthemum annual

Sown in pots (for earlier flowering): nasturtium, nemesia, lavatera, brachycoma, godetia, schizanthus (schizanthus), fiery red beans, decorative pumpkin, echium

I – II week of May Sown into the ground: mignonette, gypsophila, annual phlox, lupine, cosmea, coreopsis, popovnik (common daisy), lychnis, nasturtium, aster, marigolds and morning glory
III-IV week of June Sown into the ground: forget-me-nots, daisies, pansies, matron's evening party (hesperis)

Cooking potting mix

In the fall, also prepare a soil mixture for sowing seedlings and picking seedlings. You can, of course, use ready-made soil for growing flowers - today garden centers offer a wide variety. However, experienced flower growers prefer to prepare potting mixes themselves. Their composition may vary slightly, but, as a rule, they consist of sod (or leafy, garden) soil, peat, humus and sand. The optimal ratio of these components is 2: 2: 2: 1; however, it can vary depending on their original quality.

Sod land is prepared as follows. In the meadow, a layer of sod about 5 cm thick is removed; the turf strips are turned down with grass and stacked on top of each other in small piles. After 1–2 years, after the grass has rotted, a crumbly, nutritious soil is obtained. But preparing such a soil is long and difficult. Therefore, instead of it, you can use leafy soil: the top layer of soil from under deciduous trees or (which is most often used in practice by gardeners) well-cultivated, structural garden soil from ridges or from greenhouses.

It is better to take low-lying peat for the mixture, loose, milled - it has a dark color and a relatively dense homogeneous structure. When using looser, light-brown high-moor peat (it has a lot of non-rotted fibers), the mixture will turn out to be looser (you can not add sand to it), but liming is necessary. high-moor peat has an acidic reaction.

Humus for the preparation of the soil mixture should only be well rotted, loose, without an unpleasant odor, and the sand should be clean, coarse, best of all, river. Recently, instead of sand for soil mixtures, agroperlite is often used.

Lime, chalk or dolomite flour are also added to acidic soil (pH less than 4.8) - 10–20 g per 10 l of the mixture, depending on the degree of acidity.

The mixture is prepared on the site, pouring all the components into a heap in the right proportion (they can be counted with buckets or shovels). The pile with all the components is mixed well (sprinkling 2-3 times with a shovel from one place to another), and then sifted on a garden screen. The finished mixture is poured into bags or closing boxes (so that it does not dry out during storage) and put away in a convenient place - in a shed, on a loggia, etc.

Take care of the essentials

Sowing boxes can be purchased at the store or put together yourself from thin boards (although they turn out to be quite heavy). Another option is to use perforated plastic fruit and vegetable crates, which are easy to find in any market or grocery store. The bottom and walls of such boxes are lined with paper (with old newspapers in several layers) so that the earth does not spill out into the holes. Carefully disinfect boxes reused for growing seedlings with a disinfectant.

Before the start of the planting season, you should take care of purchasing seed boxes, as well as seedling cassettes, labels, sprayers and the necessary chemicals. You can also buy labels from stores or use strips of light-colored plastic (or ice cream sticks). Cassettes and pots are best suited for plastic, with a cell diameter of 1-10 cm, depending on the requirements of the cultivated plants. For spraying and watering seedlings, you can use a variety of sprayers (from hand to knapsack) and watering cans with fine holes on the sprayer. For watering crops and seedlings, an ordinary 1–1.5 liter plastic bottle is convenient, in the lid of which holes are made with an awl.

You also need to purchase: fertilizers - mineral complex (readily soluble - kemira, fertika, nitrophoska, etc.), nitrogen (urea, ammonium nitrate), liquid complex (forte), biofertilizers (biohumus, humate, etc.), organic (tincture mullein); growth stimulants (epin, zircon, root, etc.); fungicide disinfectants (foundazol, maxim, etc.).

How to sow

1–2 days before sowing the seeds, soil is poured into the boxes with a layer of at least 6 cm, so that 1–3 cm remains to the top edge of the box. It is not necessary to fill it in advance - when stored in the seed boxes, the soil dries out a lot. When using boxes without holes, drainage is required (a 3-5 cm layer of expanded clay is poured onto the bottom of the box). The soil can be pre-steamed (heated in a microwave or oven). However, in practice, this is difficult to do, it is easier to disinfect it by spilling it with a fungicide solution. As practice shows, the use of potassium permanganate or boiling water for this purpose is ineffective.

Plastic fruit crates

lined with paper

Pour the soil into a box,

the topsoil is sieved through a sieve

After the spilled soil dries up (becomes slightly damp), its surface must be loosened, carefully leveled and slightly compacted with a piece of board (plywood, plastic). If you plan to sow several crops or varieties in a box, then make grooves (with a box marker or just a ruler, or a wooden label pointed at the side); when sowing seeds of the same variety, it is not necessary to make grooves.

The soil is spilled before sowing

fungicide solution

The soil is loosened, leveled and slightly

compact, if necessary do

sowing furrows

It is important! Treat the seeds with a fungicide just before sowing.To do this, pour the required amount of seeds into a paper bag, add a small amount of powdered fungicide (on the tip of a knife or label) there, close the bag and shake it. It is necessary to work with chemicals, including fungicides, with rubber gloves, a respirator or a gauze bandage!

Seeds are sown along the grooves

then the crops are marked

Sprinkle the crops with soil

with a sieve

Seeds are sown in grooves or scattered, not thickly. Immediately install labels indicating the crop, variety and sowing date. It is advisable to sprinkle the crops with a solution of growth substance (epin, etc.). Very small seeds (begonia, lobelia, etc.) are not covered with soil, larger ones are covered with a layer of substrate, approximately 3-4 times the size of the seed. Then the crops are carefully watered from a sprayer, covered with a covering material or paper and put on germination at a temperature required for these crops (usually 18 ... 22 ° C). Most flower crops do not require light for seed germination, but there are species in which seeds germinate only in light (for example, kochia) - boxes with their crops are covered with transparent film or glass.

Crops are carefully watered and covered

covering material or paper

Seedling care

The crops are monitored daily and, if necessary, sprayed with water. The topsoil should always be slightly damp (but not too wet!). When the first shoots appear, they immediately remove the paper and put the boxes in a bright place. At the end of March - April it can be a well-lit window sill, a table on a warm loggia, etc. In winter, most crops do not have enough natural light, so boxes with seedlings or seedlings are placed on racks equipped with special lamps to illuminate the plants.

The seedlings and seedlings are closely monitored, they are watered moderately, preventing both the soil from drying out and its clogging. At the first signs of disease, especially - "black leg", remove diseased plants, reduce watering; after drying the surface of the soil (you can water the boxes only along the edge), sprinkle its surface with dry fine calcined sand, crushed coal or ash. If the spread of the disease cannot be stopped, then the remaining seedlings dive into fresh soil treated with fungicides.

Seedling picking

When 1–2 true leaves appear in seedlings, they begin to pick. For most crops, 5–8 cm cassettes are best. Krupnomers - castor oil plant, kohija, etc. - dive into 8–10 cm pots. Slow growing small-seeded crops such as tuberous begonia dive twice: first into 1–2 cm cassettes, then into 8–10 cm pots or cassettes.

Podkomka and watering seedlings

1 week after the pick, start feeding the seedlings. They are carried out once a week, in the morning or in the evening, watering the plants with a solution of complex mineral fertilizers (nitrophoska, water-soluble brands of kemira, fertiki, etc.) or alternating feeding with watering with solutions of liquid organic fertilizers (mullein infusion, humate). If the plants have too pale, light green leaves (the exception is the varietal feature of this sample), then complex fertilizers can be replaced 1-2 times with nitrogen fertilizers (ammonium nitrate, urea). After feeding, especially with nitrogen fertilizers, the plants must be watered with clean water to avoid leaf burns.

With slow growth, seedlings can also be treated with a solution of growth stimulants, but this should be done in moderation, because Excessive stimulation (by the way, like feeding) can have a negative effect - lodging of seedlings, and if the dose is too high, it can lead to its death. Water the seedlings after the plants are well rooted (1–1.5 weeks after picking) abundantly, but relatively rarely, letting the soil dry out slightly between waterings. The soil surface in pots is periodically loosened, removing weeds and preventing the formation of a dense soil crust.

Sweet peas Villa Roma White

blooms early and profusely when sown

in the second half of March,

compact, ideal for planters,

garden and patio containers

Petunia F1 Vladimir cross, mix

compact blueberry black plants

and salmon pink,

blooming profusely

and for a long time

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