On Thu, 18 May 2006 20:02:38 GMT, "TLR" wrote:

Hey Kathleen - Congrats on your Mtn Laurel sprouts!Wow 3 gallons of seeds -
that's a lot!
[snip]

Since I know that hard seeds should be scarified or knicked before soaking,
(ie: for morning glory I use nail clippers), I thought I should do something
similar to the Mtn Laurel seeds. As a test (since nail clippers were out of
the question), I used a small round metal file to hand-bore an indentation
into the softer 'eye' of one seed . It took a while, and I was sort of
careful - trying not to bore right through to the inside. But the seed was
so hard, I needn't have been too worried because it took a couple minutes of
boring just to make a shallow hole.

Not surprisingly, this seed was the first to absorb water, expand to double
size, and germinate - taking about 7 days. All of the other seeds were still
small and hard, having not absorbed much water, so I did the same thing to
them. Sure enough, about a week later, all had sprouted and are now merrily
growing in little pots on my patio.

Anyway, just thought I'd share that little tidbit

Teri in Cedar Park.
This is the moscited method of getting good success, but you might
want to try an easier way. I have found I can get nearly 100%
germination by simply timing the harvest correctly. When the seed
pods have formed and are just starting to lose their green color, and
the seeds are just turning pink, they are still big, fat, and soft.
If you peel off the husk at this time and plant the pink seeds, they
will sprout quite readily. It isn't as easy as it sounds to get them
out of the pod, but it's still a lot easier than the alternative. I
haven't been looking this year, but you might find now is the time.

If you want a ready source of pods, check the UT campus. I seem to
remember some pretty prolific plants near the engineering sector
(north central campus). Of course, there are many other places to
find them--my post office by Northcross Mall has quite a few.

k