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Growing hostas from seeds
aureliecelerier
Posts: 157
in Plants
Hi everyone,
So last year my neighbour who has an impressive hostas collection has given me hundreds of seeds. I initially though very few of them would germinate but to my surprise they almost all did! I kept as many seedlings as I could (around 400 _ I have a very large woodland area to fill!) and threw away the rest (shame but seriously I probably had three times more than that so I could not keep all of them). They are now 1 to 2 inches tall and doing really well in the greenhouse. Anyway I was wondering if anyone has ever grown hostas from seeds before and what are your experiences? How long does it take for them to reach maturity? When do seedings will show their final colours? I have read somewhere that the true colour appear around 2 years of age? Is this true? I know hostas do not come true from seeds so I mainly expect green ones but it would be nice to have few coloured one in the lot...
So last year my neighbour who has an impressive hostas collection has given me hundreds of seeds. I initially though very few of them would germinate but to my surprise they almost all did! I kept as many seedlings as I could (around 400 _ I have a very large woodland area to fill!) and threw away the rest (shame but seriously I probably had three times more than that so I could not keep all of them). They are now 1 to 2 inches tall and doing really well in the greenhouse. Anyway I was wondering if anyone has ever grown hostas from seeds before and what are your experiences? How long does it take for them to reach maturity? When do seedings will show their final colours? I have read somewhere that the true colour appear around 2 years of age? Is this true? I know hostas do not come true from seeds so I mainly expect green ones but it would be nice to have few coloured one in the lot...
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Here are my little hostas! (sorry my camera isn't great). I have about 400 of them at the moment. I have used fresh seeds (took me hours to open the pods trying not to damage them) and germinated them using the paper towel method (I use it with pretty much with all my seeds, saves time and money!). I transplanted them in deep root trainers as soon as the first leaves appeared and kept them in the house the whole winter using grow lights at night and watering them religiously every day. Germination was really slow (at least 1 month so you have to be patient!)
thats the problem with taking seeds from the plants. All plain green! I didn’t get any coloured ones.