Hello Sarah

In article ,
S. McLaren wrote:
Hello there,

My Ranunculus flowers have finished flowering (I'm in Melbourne Australia)
and I am harvesting the seed pods.

I grew the plants, about 3000 of them from bulbs... some prefer to call
them tubers). I harvested the seeds last season but many did not grow- I
planted them in late winter and early spring - we don't get frost here.

I was in Australia the October before last and enjoyed the magnificent
"Spring" bedding displays using a lot of "Ranunculus" at Toowoomba
Queensland, and Floriade at Canberra. At the time I could not understand how
you got the combinations of plants which I saw flowering together, but I have
since worked out the answer "No Frosts"

I have been trying to research a successful way to grow them from seed. But
most reports only discuss growing them from tubers.

I have been to my standard reference book "Garden Flowers from Seed" by
Christopher Lloyd and Graham Rice. The book is aimed at UK conditions, but
there are two comments which I think may be important to you.

(a) Seed must be fresh. They say that with fresh seed you MAY get germination
without a Winters cold.

This implies the approach that I would use ie sow the seed in Autumn in a
Cold Frame and hope for germination in the Spring. Your seed will be fresh
enough, but your winter may not be cold enough.

(b) Talking about the showy varieties they talk about sowing August to
October (UK time) at 50 degrees Fahrenheit 10 degrees Cel, and say that 60
degrees Fahrenheit 15 Cel is too hot.

I hope that this helps. I tried growing a few last year from seed, but having
seen what you can do with them in Australia I was very disappointed.

John



Does anyone here know how to grow them from seed? Should I plant them now -
its Summer here.

Cheers,

Sarah

--
EurIng J Rye CEng FIEE Electrical Engineering Consultant
18 Wentworth Close Hadleigh IPSWICH IP7 5SA England
Tel No 01473 827126 http://web.ukonline.co.uk/jrye/index.html
--- On Line using an Acorn StrongArm RiscPC ---