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Sowing Aqualegia now

zenpmdzenpmd Posts: 28

Can anyone tell me how I can start growing some now? I want some for next year and no one is selling any plants anymore. If they germinate now will they flower next year?

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  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,147

    You can sow them now but Carrie Thomas (National Collection holder) suggested January in a cold GH with the last order I got from her. 

    If you sow now there are two possibilities, they might germinate quickly and you'll have tiny seedlings to see through winter, or they might not germinate til spring.

    Trying to germinate them quickly in a heated prop or GH is not helpful for these, cold is what they want, it's what they get naturally

    They don't flower in the first year



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • josusa47josusa47 Posts: 3,530

    I don't think I've ever sown aquilegia.  Mine arrived uninvited and they sow themselves!

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,147

    I got a lot of new colours from Carrie Thomas to increase the colour range here josusa. They were mostly dirty pink ,now I have deeper colours and yellows and reds. Though the reds aren't very robust.



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • WelshonionWelshonion Posts: 3,114

    Be guided by the natural seeding.  Aqualegias cast their seeds as soon as they were ripe after flowering.

  • FairygirlFairygirl Posts: 52,030

    I have a little forest of them at present from a dwarf white one. I usually deadhead, but allowed it to seed this yeras I had promised some to soemone else.

    It'll be interesting to see what they're like - the ones that survive anyway  image

    It's a place where beautiful isn't enough of a word....



    I live in west central Scotland - not where that photo is...
  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,147
    Welshonion says:

    Be guided by the natural seeding.  Aqualegias cast their seeds as soon as they were ripe after flowering.

    See original post

     That's the best time, then the babies are a good size before winter.

    Too late for that now image



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • Mark56Mark56 Posts: 1,653

    Does anyone know if Carrie Thomas managed to stem the progress of the Aquilegia downy mildew? 

  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,147

    I've got no up to date info re that Mark. I should think it's hard to rid a garden of that when so many of your plants are aquilegias.



    In the sticks near Peterborough
  • I think she lost her collections, Mark.  If you go to the seeds section on her website which was last updated in 2016:

    This will be the last Touchwood Seed-list. My pride-&-joy granny's bonnets are dying with the new killer disease: Aquilegia Downy Mildew.  I give up.

    image

    Last edited: 21 October 2017 18:35:30

    A trowel in the hand is worth a thousand lost under a bush.
  • nutcutletnutcutlet Posts: 27,147

    That is so sad. image



    In the sticks near Peterborough
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