You can start planting your seeds after the dirt in your planting tray has been added, watered, and drained.
Succulent seeds are exceedingly tiny, despite the fact that we have already emphasized this countless times. They are so tiny that the wind can just as easily pick them up and carry them away. As a result, you should sow your seeds in a protected area—either indoors or in a wind-protected outdoor spot.
- Place the seeds on the palm of one hand that is open flat. As a result, it will be much simpler to press the seeds into the tray.
- Use caution when spreading the seeds throughout the soil’s surface, making sure to allow ample space between each one.
- Once they begin to grow, succulents will become larger, and this will require additional space between the seeds.
- Put one or two seeds in each of the sections on the tray, if one is present.
You shouldn’t cover succulent seeds with soil because they are so small. Why? Because if the plants are covered in soil after they take root and start to germinate, they won’t be able to climb to the surface and will perish.
We strongly advise growing each variety of succulent plant in a separate tray if you’re growing a variety of succulent plants at the same time. This is due to the fact that the germination time varies depending on the type of succulent seed. It will be much simpler to offer each type of plant with the ideal growing circumstances as a result.
Cover the Seeds
Most succulent species require a particular level of humidity for germination (think about the environment they grow in in nature).
The humidity that the seeds require to grow can be created by covering the planting tray with a plant dome or even a shower cap (yep, the kind you wear to protect your hair in the shower).
Should you soak seeds for succulents?
Use pre-made or homemade cactus soil mix to fill a tiny pot. To level the earth, gently press it down. The soil is properly drained and aerated with the use of inorganic grit, sand, or pumice.
Step 2
The seeds should be soaked in warm water for 30 minutes prior to planting. This encourages germination and loosens the seed coat. Opuntias need a few days of soaking in warm water since their seed coverings are quite resistant. Soak the seeds, then scatter them over the top of the flat soil. Unless the seed is exceptionally large, avoid pressing it into the soil.
Step 3
Just enough inorganic top dressing should be used to completely cover the seeds and soil surface. Don’t cover the seeds entirely in the top coating. Water gently and let the pot entirely drain.
A word about watering: During step 4, it is essential to use freshwater or distilled water to help avoid bacterial and algal growth. If the chlorine in your tap water is overpowering, you should think about drinking distilled water instead. The chlorine will damage or stop growth by burning the young, delicate roots and perhaps causing iron chlorosis. Careful watering can be accomplished by either letting the pot stand in water that is half its height or less, or by gently watering from the top while being careful not to wash away the top dressing. Allow the pot to drain completely in both scenarios.
Step 4
With a plastic container that enables light to pass through, cover and seal the pot. This might be a plastic tub or a supported plastic bag that is rubber-banded shut around the plant. The goal is to create a setting that will act as a greenhouse by retaining heat and moisture. Many things will work, so think creatively and ingeniously! But take cautious not to leave the seedling container submerged in water for too long. If you have chosen a plastic cover that is clear and colorless, move the pot to a location with bright indirect light that is approximately 70 F (21 C). If you’ve picked a clear but colored container, like blue or green, you should put it somewhere with a little more light while keeping the temperature the same. If you have chosen a container that is slightly hazy or foggy, you should put it in a cooler environment, 65 F (18 C), where it receives at least 4 and no more than 8 hours of direct sunlight, with the remaining hours of the day spent in brilliant indirect light.
Keep in mind that the sun is hotter in the late morning and afternoon than it is in the early morning or early evening. Consider the plastic bottle in general as sunscreen. The most light can travel through clear, colorless plastic, slightly less light can pass through clear, colored plastic, and even less light can flow through fogged, clear plastic. In every situation, the plastic container’s interior will warm up.
Don’t fry your young, delicate plants! If the walls of your container dry out during germination, water sparingly, reseal the container, and move it to a warm, well-lit area. If algal growth appears, remove the cover and let the seedling pot partially breathe before wiping it down with a solution of no more than 1 part bleach to 20 parts water (5 percent bleach in water). Give the cover time to dry. Place the seedling container back in a warm, well-lit area after recovering it and sealing it. As needed, keep cleaning the plastic container.
Step 5
The recently sprouting seedlings appear to be well on their way, despite being above earth. They have disproportionately small root systems underground, making it difficult for them to quickly take in the nutrients they need to grow into mature plants. Therefore, until they are almost fully grown, the seedlings should be kept in a plastic container at a high humidity level. Up until appropriate root systems are created, high humidity makes it easier for the roots and leaves to absorb water and nutrients.
Step 6
When the seedlings are large enough to handle, carefully take each seedling from its original nursing pot while wearing gloves or covering your fingers with tape. If the soil has kept moist, this is much simpler.
Step 7
Repot the seedling gently into a pot filled with cactus and succulent soil mix, filling the pot all the way to the top, and top dress with sand, gravel, or pumice. 3 or 4 days later, water. Never put the cactus back in its humidity compartment made of plastic.
How long does it take for succulent seeds to sprout?
The time it takes for the seeds to even germinate after they are harvested and sown, let alone develop into full-grown succulents, can range from three weeks to a year.
Step 1: Fill the seed starting slots
I started by placing my succulent soil into each of the planting holes in my seed-standing tray. After fully soaking the soil, I let the extra water drain into the sink through the drainage holes.
Step 2: Add seeds
I then carefully cleaned and dried my hands. The succulent seeds are really tiny, so I wanted to take precautions to prevent losing or contaminating them. In each planting hole, I placed one seed and lightly pressed it into the moist dirt.
Step 3: Provide light, humidity, and water
The germination, rhizomes, and growth of succulent seeds require a lot of moisture. Because the seed starting tray features drainage holes where the extra water may flow into, watering them is quite simple. When that tray is kept somewhat moist, you can “water them from the bottom.” You can also begin watering as usual from the top once the seeds begin to grow.
The seed tray’s translucent plastic dome, which is placed atop it, aids in moisture retention. This is crucial to ensuring the happiness of the seedlings as they emerge and preventing the soil from drying out! The recommended temperature range for indoor plants is between 65 and 80 degrees Fahrenheit, just like other indoor plants. There is also some heat retention thanks to the dome.
To see if there was a significant difference, I chose to use two different lighting arrangements. One of the trays is placed in a bathroom window that receives sunlight in the late morning, midday, and evening. I placed the other tray next to a window that receives morning sunlight but is also covered by a grow light for eight hours every day. (I discussed my grow light in this post about inexpensive, useful presents for plant lovers.)
Step 4: Baby them!
Continue giving your seeds water and sunshine. Within two to eight weeks, they ought to “sprout.” You can take off the topping a few days after your seeds have sprouted. They must breathe some air! As needed, keep filling the water tray. Keep the soil from drying out.
You can reduce watering once you start to see the root system truly taking shape (usually after around 3 or 4 months). Start by letting the soil to dry out in between waterings, exactly like you would with a typical succulent. Then, carefully transfer your brand-new, little babies to their respective pots.
Don’t worry if mold starts to appear on top of your seedling trays. Remove the lid so they can breathe. You can also be watering your plants excessively, so cut back. If you’d like, you can dig away a portion of the top dirt layer. Nevertheless, as you can see in the image below, it isn’t harming or stopping the seedling from growing.
Overwatering, on the other hand, can harm your seedling or result in its tiny, exposed roots decomposing once it starts to grow. Also, if your seeds haven’t germinated after a few weeks, don’t worry. Mine started sprouting after around 2 weeks, and they sprouted intermittently for weeks after that.
In the future, I’ll update this post to reflect the development of each of my succulent types. Happy planting in the meanwhile!
Is it simple to grow succulents from seed?
One of the recommended plants for novice gardeners is the succulent. You would think that growing them from seed would be simple given their resistance to drought and low maintenance requirements. Though are they?
Growing succulents from seed is actually fairly challenging. Because they are so small, the seeds are easily harmed or lost. Succulent seeds require a very long time to mature, in addition to everything else. It will take far longer than you would like for your seeds to produce anything.
We’ll go over how to develop a succulent from seed in the article that follows. We’ll discuss why it’s so challenging and which varieties of succulents are the most straightforward to grow from seed. We’ll also examine the most straightforward method for growing your own succulent collection.
How long should seeds from succulent plants be soaked?
For some seed soaking techniques, acidic chemicals or even weak tea or coffee may be used in place of the water. These acidic solutions are intended to loosely mimic animal stomach acid. However, most situations don’t call for these fixes. Water will work just well for most seeds.
Take a small bowl, and fill it with as much hot water as your faucet will let you. Some seeds may withstand boiling water, but since heat tolerance varies widely between species, it is best to soak seeds in hot tap water.
Place your seeds in the bowl after it has been filled with hot water, and let them stay there while the water cools. Common queries at this phase include the following “How much time should seeds soak? and “Can seeds be over-soaked? Yes, seeds can be oversoaked. A seed will drown if it is submerged in water for too long. Most seeds should only be soaked for 12 to 24 hours, and not for longer than 48. Some plant species’ seeds may withstand extended soakings, however you should only do this if the instructions specifically for this species say to.
You can take steps to enhance how well your seeds respond to soaking. Before soaking, scarification of large seeds or seeds with exceptionally tough coverings is beneficial. Scarification is the process of causing some sort of injury to the seed coat to improve the ability of water to permeate the seed. Numerous techniques can be used for scarification. These include lightly hitting the seed with a hammer to help shatter the seed coat, nicking the seed coat with a knife, and rubbing the seed on fine-grain sandpaper.
Your seeds can be sown as instructed after soaking. The advantage of soaking seeds before to planting is that it will shorten the germination period, resulting in happier, faster-growing plants.
Can you freeze seeds to make them last longer?
Yes. All seed banks freeze seeds that are meant to be kept for a long time, but you can also do this at home.
If you preserved seeds from your own plants, the key is to start with properly dried seeds and keep them in airtight, freeze-proof containers to lower the chance of seeds collecting moisture. Ensure that the freezer is dependable, maintains steady temperatures, and isn’t frequently opened. Store the seeds there.
Before planting the seeds, let them thaw from frozen for an entire night at room temperature.
What temperature will kill seeds?
Temperatures exceeding 108°F cause seeds to start dying, and 140°F entirely sterilizes them (which usually happens in hot compost piles). However, the embryo inside a seed can already be harmed by prolonged high temperatures over 90°F, which reduces the likelihood of germination.
Keep your seeds out of the attic, the unheated garage, and the interior of a hot automobile on a hot day. Keep your seeds in the coolest (and driest) area of the house, such as a closet in a north-facing room or a dehumidified basement, if optimal storage temperatures below 40F with less than 10% humidity are not available.
Should you vacuum seal seeds?
Vacuum sealing is the best seed preservation technique if you wish to keep seeds for a long time. Start with very dry seeds and vacuum seal them in a plastic bag before keeping them in a refrigerator or freezer (they should shatter or snap in two cleanly, rather than break or bend under pressure) (below 40F).
Do seeds need air in storage?
No. In actuality, the ideal storage environment for seeds is an airtight container in a consistently cool, dark, and dry environment, such a refrigerator or freezer.
The lack of air and low humidity allow the seeds stay dormant and viable for a longer period of time, provided that they were adequately dry before storage (they shatter or break in half neatly, rather than smash or bend under pressure).
Do seeds expire?
Seeds aren’t always “(Unless they are left in environments that encourage mold growth or rot) expire or go bad. They do, however, lose quality and energy over time. Consider the dates that are displayed on seed packages “Foods marked with “best by” dates should be consumed within specified parameters; otherwise, they risk spoiling.
The total yield will be decreased if you try to plant seeds beyond those dates, though you might still get a few of them to sprout.