On 08/06/2017 09:21, Nick Maclaren wrote:
In article ,
Martin Brown wrote:
Recently an article suggested that pomegranate seeds were quite easy to
germinate. I have rescued some from a pomegranate to that end.

I wonder though how to treat them to obtain germination. They are very
fragile and soft which makes me wonder what animal was normally involved
in their seed distribution in habitat. Can't be anything with teeth as
the seeds are so easily crushed. Ants maybe?

Not that easily. If the seeds are very soft, they will be infertile
ones. They require a definite bite, and then get stuck in your
teeth. In nature, some wouldn't get crushed and pass through.

OK. Thanks for that. Wasting my time on these fragile white things then.

Any suggestions for the optimum conditions for growing them on?
With without the fleshy pith? Dried and rehydrated or fresh?
Any chance of fruiting one in the UK? Or purely ornamental?

I never got mine to flower, but the leaves are attractively bronzy.

So it is growable in Cambridge but for foliage only. How disappointing!
They flower OK in France but don't get useful fruit. They do look exotic
which is why I fancied trying them.

And no. They require heat to fruit, and I don't mean a joke like
a few days at 30 Celsius. But they are serious drought-resistant;
mine got dessicated one summer when I was on holiday, lost all its
leaves, and simply grew new ones later. But DON'T plant them in any
soil that might waterlog, even temporarily.

I have no chance then. We are on solid clay. Came back today to find
everything waterlogged after 50mm or rain previous two days. Odd really
since everything was baked hard and brick like after weeks of drought.

The same applies to Strelitzia - they are both arid terrain plants.

I can just about grow rosemary in the rain shadow of the garage but the
places where drought tolerant plants will grow are very limited.

--
Regards,
Martin Brown