Rare seeds
8 July 2024 08:51 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
igenlodeToday is recycling day in surrounding streets, so I have been trawling through my neighbours' recycling boxes to find a replacement for one of my four-pint water carriers, a.k.a. plastic supermarket milk bottles, which has sprung a slow leak and has been oozing water all over the floor, such that as a means of water storage it had to be banished onto the balcony. I have already had to replace the six-pint carrier by similar means, although the newer ones don't seem so sturdy and probably won't last all that long; I think the supermarkets have been cutting down on packaging by using less plastic on these 'disposable' items.
It is rather horrifying how many people round here have recycling boxes crammed full to bursting of plastic bottles of *water* as their daily drink.
The single pink Swan River Daisy seedling that I rescued and planted out is looking pretty sick (possibly it was a mistake to pot it up still inside its temporary paper pot, but I assumed that would quickly rot away and that it would be best to disturb the roots as little as possible). On the other hand, the 'other' one appears to be thriving in its very shallow compartment -- I have been holding back on potting that up because I was hoping the 'Linaria' seedlings in that compartment might amount to something, but they are still clinging on to life by the tips of their metaphorical fingernails, and I'm reluctant to disturb them.
The Cumbrian yellow poppy has been successfully setting large number of seed heads, which appear to be ripening (as usual with popppies, the seedcase dries up and changes colour and 'windows' open in the end of it so that the seed can fall out when the wind blows the stems around). Since there was so much of it I tried simply scattering the entire contents of two or three seedheads around the base of one of the marigold pots to see if anything at all would gerninate, but it hasn't -- as with all my other attempts. The seed of this variety seems to be almost entirely infertile, although the Cumbria WIldlife Trust claims that it self-seeds and spreads freely!
I now have a nice display of Gypsophila elegans, although self-sown rather than the ones that I planted, which are still well short of flowering!
It is rather horrifying how many people round here have recycling boxes crammed full to bursting of plastic bottles of *water* as their daily drink.
The single pink Swan River Daisy seedling that I rescued and planted out is looking pretty sick (possibly it was a mistake to pot it up still inside its temporary paper pot, but I assumed that would quickly rot away and that it would be best to disturb the roots as little as possible). On the other hand, the 'other' one appears to be thriving in its very shallow compartment -- I have been holding back on potting that up because I was hoping the 'Linaria' seedlings in that compartment might amount to something, but they are still clinging on to life by the tips of their metaphorical fingernails, and I'm reluctant to disturb them.
The Cumbrian yellow poppy has been successfully setting large number of seed heads, which appear to be ripening (as usual with popppies, the seedcase dries up and changes colour and 'windows' open in the end of it so that the seed can fall out when the wind blows the stems around). Since there was so much of it I tried simply scattering the entire contents of two or three seedheads around the base of one of the marigold pots to see if anything at all would gerninate, but it hasn't -- as with all my other attempts. The seed of this variety seems to be almost entirely infertile, although the Cumbria WIldlife Trust claims that it self-seeds and spreads freely!
I now have a nice display of Gypsophila elegans, although self-sown rather than the ones that I planted, which are still well short of flowering!