We have lots of little seedlings growing in the greenhouse this very moment. And there are cuttings that are rooting, too, and plants that we’ve divided that are just now filling their new pots. We haven’t started any of our annuals yet, it’s too early. Perennials and shrubs, on the other hand, are slower to germinate and slower to grow. They need to be started now! Or last month.
Agastache ‘Joyful’
Thymus coccineus ‘Major’
Salvia WILD THING
The plants above were propagated from cuttings or division–most of the seedlings started this month aren’t quite as far along:
Chamaebatiaria millefolium (Or, Fernbush, to her friends.)
All seeds are miraculous, but shrubs and trees are even more so. A tiny little seed can germinate and grow into a woody plant that is 100′ tall, in the case of some trees, or 4′ tall in the case of the Fernbush seedlings above.
Fernbush has been an enigma, sturdy and drought tolerant in the garden, but impossible to root from cuttings and even seeds didn’t germinate easily. We have a twelve year old example of it in our No-Water garden. Even in the driest year it flowered, and I collected seeds. When the seeds didn’t germinate I thought perhaps it was because the drought kept it from having the strength to set viable seeds.
Last summer a customer from Pueblo West overheard me explaining to someone about our lack of Fernbush plants to sell and said that he had Fernbush seedlings he would give us! I was amazed that his shrub had seeded into the garden. The next week he and his wife brought us seedlings about 4″ tall, and a bag of fernbush seed. I wrote down their name….and now I can’t read my writing….anyway, those seeds are germinating in our greenhouse, so many thank to the Vilein? family of Pueblo West!
Fernbush is a great Southwestern native, and a great plant for the pollinator garden. Bees and wasps love it!
