June 3, 2009 at 11:17 pm (gardening, seedstarting)
Tags: bangalore, coleus, frenchmarigold, marigold, seedstarting, tithonia
Exactly a month before, the seedlings in these posts were lying motionless in a tiny airtight packet. It was in one of my previous post, they began their journey of life and here they are ..
Coleus Mix:
The seed packet promised that Its a mix of brilliant colors. The colors are brilliant no doubt not sure how much “mixed” they are.. anyway its not the seedling’s fault.
French Marigold:
They are growing at a very fast and steady pace. With last few days in Bangalore having unpredictable weather, the sunshine in the balcony is feeble and it shows up right there in the plants.
Here is Tithonia with a lush green foliage. They look so fresh especially in the morning.
Not sure how many more days to wait for them to flower.. haaa… “God give me patience but please hurry up”.
gg
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May 10, 2009 at 9:24 pm (propagation, seedstarting)
Tags: bangalore, coleus, marigold, seedstarting, tricotyledons
Haa..With a title like this, you might have clicked it immediately to witness some beautiful indian bombshells… if you did so, dont worry ..
It happens..
Nevertheless, the cuties of this post won’t dissapoint you.
Remember, last sunday I had sown some seeds, its time to check their progress.
First came French marigold in record time of 3 days.( actually I could see the cotyledons in 2 days).
While I was closely observing all these seedlings, something just caught my attention.. There is one seedling with 3 cotyledons.. ( Tricotyledons??!). May be its a ’sport’. Anyways here it is for your viewing pleasure. Carefully look at the seedling in the bottom of the picture below.
Here is coleus with its teeny weeny seedlings, with a wide smile on their face.
The Ornamental Chillies are slow to come. While I am writing this blog, few of them have germinated. But thats for someother day. They just missed the train when the photo shoot was happening.. 
.
Have a lot to share about the training I attended. May be in the coming posts…
gg
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May 5, 2009 at 11:26 pm (gardening, perlite, seedstarting)
Tags: perlite, coleus, bangalore, seedstarting, peat, humidity, ornamental, flowers, tithonia, chilly, marigold, french
Ever since I started growing vegetable in my container garden, flowers and ornamental plants took a back seat. And everytime I visit garden stores, I end up buying lots of flower seed packets and realize that I dont have enough containers to plant them. But now I got some more new containers/pots. So its party time!!.. My hands started itching to sow some flower seeds. Last sunday, the sowing finally happened.
Here are the pics…
Seed packets on the left and cell trays on the right side with plant labels on the top. Labels are DIY types. If you watch closely the seed packet on the right is Ornamental Chillies. I have been wanting to grow these since ages and finally got it a week back.
These cavity trays will be filled with seed starting mix.
Seeds with the seed starting mix. The seed starting mix is 3:1 peat + perlite. It has no fertilizer and hence will not burn the seedlings. Once the seedlings have their true leaves I water them with a weak solution of fertilizer. Sowing is different for different flowers. For Marigold, the seeds need to be covered but coleus needs light to germinate. Care has to be taken. Spending time on reading the seedpacket will do good.
The red tray that holds the mix is from a local plastic recycle shop for Rs 30 and its such a useful item in my garden that too at a dead cheap price.
Seed are sown in their own cells and covered with a polythene sheet. I started the following seeds,
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French Marigold.
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Tithonia.
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Ornamental Chilly.
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Coleus.
and now the most difficult job…. waiting for them to germinate..
Will keep you all posted about the progress. There are more seeds to sow.. May be someother day!
more later
gg
27 Comments
March 13, 2008 at 11:52 am (gardening, propagation)
Tags: bangalore, coleus, container, cuttings, greenhouse, in bangalore, in india, propagation, quicroot, root, rooting
Nothing like watching your stem cuttings root
Yes the results are out!. I had a peek at the mini-green house I made on March 6th and Boy! Was i surprised?. There are roots. Just 6 days. Coleus plants are very friendly in terms of propagation but 6 days is just amazing(Atleast for me!).
Nothing beats a pic. Here you go.
1. Cutting in 1.5″ container with roots peeking out!
2. Roots closeup
3. Another closeup.
4. Below is the previous batch that are out of their greenhouse and sitting in the hot sun.
Now I am going to try on the roses I have. I know roses can be real tough to root. Lets see how far I can go.
Happy me!.
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March 6, 2008 at 9:15 am (gardening, propagation)
Tags: coir, coleus, greenhouse, howto, perlite, propagation, quicroot
I have been taking cuttings from coleus several times and Here in this HOWTO I am going to explain how easy this process is and how to multiply the coleus plant you have in following steps with pictures. I hope you enjoy.
Requisite:
- Coleus stem tip cuttings [ Approx 4 inches in length]
- Potting mix.
- Root promoting hormone. [IBA]
- Containers
- Polythene bags
- A razor blade
Step 1: Collect coleus cuttings.
The first step is to go around the garden and find out what plants you want to take cuttings from. Those plants must be healthy and disease free. Once you have spotted a plant, then using a razor blade take the cuttings from the stem tip such that the cuttings are approx 4 inches long. If you have many varieties of coleus then you will end up with something like the pictures below.
Once you cut the stems, put them in a glass of water like above till they are inserted into the propagation medium. This helps them to remain fresh and they wont droop.
Step 2: Prepare the cuttings.
For all the cuttings you have taken, make sure that you remove the leaves that arise from the bottom most node( Place where the leaf is attached to the stem). Once you have removed all the leaves on the last node, make a cut just a centimetre below the node. If you do it just right, you will have your cuttings look like this.
Step 3: Prepare the medium
The best medium I have found to give good results is a mixture of Coir dust, Sand, perlite in equal proportions. Any other well drained medium should also be fine. Ensure that the medium is free from any fungal infection. Make the medium moist but not so soggy wet. Let the medium drain.
Step 4: Stick’em in.
Now, take cutting by cuttings, and dip them in the rooting hormone ( this speeds up rooting a little bit). I have a solution called “Quicroot”. Any other standard rooting solution should be fine as well. Using your dibber, make a hole in the medim so that the bottom most node of the cutting is totally inside and its deep enough to not let the stem cutting fall off. Stick the stem cutting in to that hole and gently press the surrounding medium.
Step 5: Make a mini greenhouse
Once the cuttings are inserted into the medium, prepare a mini green house to keep the cuttings fresh and to not lose moisture. I took a window planter and kept all my cuttings inside that and covered the whole thing with a polythene bag. The end result was something like this. If you have a green house or a propagating chamber thats cool too.
Tada! and you wait for 2-3 weeks. The end result is colony of coleus plants for your viewing pleasure.
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February 8, 2008 at 6:46 am (gardening, organic)
Tags: chrysanthemum, coleus, keradix, quicroot, tomato
With the plants paying off for all the hardwork i had put, its really time to enjoy the results. Yes, all the plants in my container garden are doing really well. With regular spray of panchagavya supplemented with vermicompost, they couldn’t be happier.
Sometime back I bought a Coleus variety called “Crimson velvette” which is now a bushy plant from which i have already taken 15 cuttings and I am excited to say that I have 100% success in rooting all of them. They are still in their mini greenhouse. Once they are ready to face the real world after hardening they will pose for a pic.
Tomatoes, Eggplants are all doing great. Here is a pic of 25 day old tomato seedling
The tiny plants you see behind are cockscomb and couple of spinach seedlings that got into the cockscomb seed packet somehow .
Out of 6 chrysanthemum cuttings I made, just 2 were lucky. but then I rooted them using “Keradix” which is 2.2% humic acid and not really a rooting hormone. I also have IBA solution called “Quicroot” but they didnt mention the concentration of it.
Will make some more cuttings of the mums and post the results.
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