Seed-raising fun

I had a very pleasant childhood flashback this morning. Just a little one. I was patiently and carefully pulling out overcrowded coleus seedlings and suddenly I felt about ten years old again. It was that strong sense of playing quietly and contentedly on my own that I suddenly remembered so clearly. Way back then there was nothing I liked better than getting absorbed in some little project on my own. Part science, part play. And that's how it felt this morning.

I can't help but look upon raising seeds as play. It's so much fun. Here's my little seedy headquarters. I have two of these mini greenhouses (and for Aussie readers they're as cheap as chips, too, just $8.49 at Bunnings). In this one I'm raising seeds of coleus and quinces. The other is tomato land. The little sliding vents in the top allow you to control the humidity levels.

Progress so far is excellent for both the coleus (on the left) and the quinces (right). I only found out recently that coleus seeds shouldn't be covered at all – they need sunlight to germinate, and germinate they have, in a bit over two weeks. The quinces are just a whim. I was in the supermarket a few weeks ago and bought a late-season quince just so I could extract the seed and have a go at propagating them. At this stage I'm still not sure if I'll go ahead and grow the best quince seedling on to become a potted fruit tree. I haven't researched that bit yet!

Within a few seconds of cutting open quinces the flesh starts to brown (in the kitchen, if preparing them for cooking, to stop them browning you usually rub them with lemon juice or toss them into 'acidulated water' – ie, water mixed with lemon juice). As I just wanted the seeds, that didn't matter. As the seeds were biggish, I planted them about half an inch deep in seed-raising mix.

The delight in seeing seeds sprout never fades. Just like eating ice-cream on a hot day, it's always the same simple thrill of pleasure. Ladies and gentlemen, I give you quince seedlings, 17 days after planting.

Coleus seeds are very fine and so overcrowding is pretty well unavoidable. Having learned to simply scatter the seeds over the soil surface and water in, the germination rate has been great, and is faster that the three weeks mentioned on the seed packet. As the seeds were crowded in so closely, and are still quite tiny, I used tweezers to gently remove the weaker ones to give the stronger ones room to grow. It was while I was doing this that I had my little childhood flashback.

I'll probably do a second thinning of the coleus seedlings in another fortnight, as they get bigger and somewhat more crowded together again. I'm hoping to hold off on a final thinning until I get some idea of each plant's foliage colour, as I'd love to have as rich a variety of colours as possible, which is the great thing about coleus.

This is what I mean about coleus's foliage colour variety. This is the spot I call 'Coleus Corner', in a photo taken last summer. It's in almost full shade and the coleus has put on such a good show from about January through to April in the past few years. Unfortunately, this spot is taken now, by our new clivias, but I have several other shady spots where a clump of coleus will be allowed to do their fabulously colourful thing for a few summer months.

As mentioned earlier, my other mini greenhouse has tomato seeds on the go, although I have managed to squeeze in a tray of lettuce seeds as well, and out in the garden I just sowed another couple of tubs of purple sweet alyssum seeds. While I do often buy seedlings from nurseries to get a quick head-start with growing various vegies and flowers, nothing comes near the pleasure of raising plants from seeds. It's the complete gardening fun package!

Idle idyll

Too much of a good thing right now. Wet days, plenty of them, above average February rainfall after a too-dry January. Fair enough. The only thing an idle gardener can do at the moment is wander around during a break in the rain and enjoy the scenery. Rain softens summer gardens here in Sydney – like a delicious sauce it adds complexity to the dish.

My healthy, happy, potted cumquat, all dolled up in pearls. Its summer flush of flowers has just given way to reveal a host of little fruits eagerly making their way in life.

Next door to my potted cumquat is my friend, Michelle's, potted cumquat, which I am baby-sitting for her while she and her husband, Evan, spend a year in the Outback discovering the other Australia. For some strange reason, Michelle's cumquat is about two to three weeks more advanced in flowering and fruiting than mine. Both plants are the same variety, in the same spot in the garden, next to each other, and they receive an identical regime of food, water and encouragement from me. Yet Michelle's plant finished flowering three weeks ago and is steaming ahead with fruit formation, while mine happily lags behind at all times. One of life's little mysteries, but the main thing is that both plants are doing well (and you'll get another batch of home-made cumquat marmalade later this year, Michelle!)

As well as babysitting Michelle's potted cumquat, I'm also looking after Evan's standard 'Friesia' rose. Ever since I gave it a light mulch of old cow manure, plus a treatment with a soil wetting agent, it has really started to power along beautifully, a much happier chap. Such a lovely scent to its yellow roses, many of which make their way indoors into Pam's little empire of vases, which are dotted like pretty little forts guarding bookcases and ledges here and there throughout the house.

Speaking of lovely scents, these scented-leaf pelargoniums (rear, left) smell heavenly on this moist morning. The other participants in this pleasingly green scene are a golden marjoram (front left), potted mint (front right) and Murraya (rear, right). The trunk in the centre belongs to an olive tree, by the way.

The berries on the potted curry leaf tree are changing colour from red to black at the moment. My wife Pam does botanical illustration in watercolours, and she has chosen the curry leaf tree as her subject for a course she's doing at the Sydney Botanic Gardens, doing studies of its flowers, berries and leaves. Can't wait to see the completed work, but I will have to wait, as she doesn't like to hurry these things. She takes her own time, and the results are always a thing of lasting beauty.

After a snooze through the dry heat of January, the new 'Eureka' lemon tree has perked up wonderfully in the February rain. And, as part of the annual routine with citrus here, I'll be feeding all of them this weekend. I feed the greedy in-ground plants twice a year, in late February and late August (the potted citrus are given lighter feeds every six weeks). Citrus love their pelletised chicken manure, which adds a certain farmyard aroma to Amateur Land for about 48 hours, but it keeps them very happy, even if Pam and the neighbours aren't always thrilled.

Everywhere on this idle morning the garden is gently sagging under its shiny coat of rain. Coleus Corner is much more maroon-hued than in any previous year, but that's OK with me. I think this colour scheme is probably at its best in the rain. The more varied and colourful versions of Coleus Corner of other years looked better in the sunshine, but on a rainy day I like this darker, moodier scheme best.

So, there's no weeding, no trimming, no jobs to do at all this idle weekday morning. Just a few minutes during a break in the rain in my soggy little idyll before getting down to work. The perfect start, really.

Dream runs & trying again

Some little gardening projects come off just how you hoped, while with others your dreams are dashed just when you thought it was all going to be a success. When that happens, there's only one solution – try again! Down in the spot I call 'Coleus Corner' both little stories are playing out again this summer, but this time I'm hoping for two successes out of two attempts, rather than my one-all draw last summer. Let me explain...

First of all, the good news. Coleus Corner is up and growing again this year, a completely different bunch of leaf colours and patterns compared with last year, but nevertheless a happily tropical looking little splash of colour in a spot which had previously spent too many years being dusty old Dullsville.

Pictured above, for comparison, the coleus patch on February 10, 2008 (so helpful these digital camera file info thingys - they keep track of what I shot when much better than my memory could ever manage.) As you can see, the leaf colours and patterns are different compared with this year. If anything, last year's were better, and that's because this patch grew entirely from seed, while this year's patch was a mix of seed plus some seedlings to fill in a few gaps where this year's seed germination had been rather poor. Can't beat seed when you're looking for variety!

So, at least with the coleus patch I can simply note that it's working well again. However, deeper down in Coleus Corner, I'm nervously trying to prevent a repeat of last year's disaster with my ornamental gingers.

Here's a photo taken 10 minutes ago, with the dramatic flower spike opening out, ready to put on a show. These ginger flowers sit on top of 1.5-2m long canes. You can see the plant's broadish green leaves here, too, plus little red colourations where the leaves join the stems. From one plant I now have about seven canes coming up, and this is the most advanced of the flower spikes. Last year things got to this stage, and then one morning....

I came outside to discover oodles and oodles of caterpillar frass all over the flower stems. They'd had a great old feast overnight. Every flower had been munch totally, and I never saw a speck of flowering ginger – I still don't know what colour the flowers are! I hadn't realised that caterpillars would be a problem, but apparently there is one type of caterpillar which just loves munching on ginger plants.

So this year it's war! I'm using a new 'organic' spray that's said to control caterpillars, but after the miserable failure of the 'organic' fruit fly spray with my tomatoes (posted about in 'crop failure' recently here) I have a level of confidence somewhere between low and rock-bottom that I'll be seeing ginger flowers in the next few weeks.

There's only one option at this stage, and that's to hang in there. Sure, I'm visiting my ginger plants often and seeing if I can actually spot the little blighters, but so far I haven't seen anything untoward. The suspense is bearable, and the compensation of a cheery Coleus Corner putting on its quiet riot just a few feet away soothes all visits to that part of the garden. Somehow I think that despite my armed patrols, nature will simply take its course – hopefully this year by allowing these spectacular flowers to bloom!

Coleus corner

What to do with a dark and shady corner? Last summer I discovered the answer was "sprinkle around some coleus seed" and it produced a beautifully colourful result. And I'm doing it again this year. Just sowed the seed a few weeks back, and the first coleus babies are up this morning.

This is what I enjoyed last summer. One packet of Mr Fothergill's coleus seeds turned into an incredible array of leaf patterns and colours.

Pulling back a few more feet shows the 'corner' in Coleus Corner. It's just outside the door to Pam's studio. Sunshine rarely makes it down here, even in summer, as it's also under the shade of an olive tree. I sowed the seed late-ish last year, and this is how the coleus looked from late December through to late March.

By May the plants had grown taller, stragglier and that tropical carnival of colour had taken on the seedy, dishevelled look of a drunk with a morning-after hangover. Oh well, it is temperate Sydney, not tropical Cairns, and it was good while it lasted.

And so I launched into my completely ill-fated attempt at a cutback in late winter, which merely finished off what was left, rather than prompting a revival. Had my doubts it would work, anyway, I now say with 20:20 hindsight.

So, a few weeks back I invested the huge sum of $2.95 in another packet of coleus seed and here's the most advanced bub. Interestingly, all my coleus babies were this colour at this stage last year. It was much later that they took on their various bright colours.

There is one survivor from last year, Mr Speckled coleus, on the left here. He was the only one not grown from seed – he was given to me by a friend later on once the coleus patch had taken shape. Mr Speckled looks like he's ready to grow on this spring, and with his roots reaching into the compost bin against which he's planted, maybe that's the secret to coleus survival in Sydney winters – lots and lots of compost and other organic matter. I'll try that this year with the newly sown patch and see what happens.

Elsewhere in the land of Coleus Corner there's a small community of shade-lovers who have been doing well for several years, without much attention from me at all. This bird's nest fern is an old hand in my garden, and every year it wins the "most primeval plant" award as it sends up its wonderful new batch of fronds. To the left in this photo is an ornamental ginger which has comprehensively failed to be ornamental so far. Waiting patiently, I am.

You get a peek into planet Earth's distant, ancient beginnings when bird's nest ferns unravel.

Another coleus corner inhabitant is this Pteris fern, whose variegated fingers of leaves brighten the darkness very nicely.

Not sure who this person is, but I bought him at the same time as I bought the Pteris fern about 10 years ago and they have lived together happily ever since.

One of the fascinating little themes that I'm exploring here in my garden is growing as much as possible from seed. For a long time that's been a vegie-growing thing, but with the colourful little success in the shade of Coleus Corner I've reminded myself that everything can be grown from seed.