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Growing Ranunculus
Hello,
I've been growing ranunculus for the last 4 years here in Melbourne and I am always keen to learn more about growing this beautiful flower. I like growing them in masses because they are so cheap and plentiful - $8 will get you 100 combs. If off-peak - June July August etc.. its cheaper. You can buy them now at the nursery for a cheap price because its slightly off-season; $5 can get you 110 and $2 about 40 good ones. I buy about 1000+ every year. I also harvest the seeds and try to plant them too. Each plant will produce a hundred seeds but its difficult to grow them to a mature level. I found that they do well when planted during March to May. They require a cool temperate climate about 10 - 20 C. They don't do well if its too hot (30C) or too cold (1C). You have to try to mimic Mediterrean Spring conditions. So chill them - putting them in the bottom of the fridge (temp of about 5C) for a day or so, then plant them in April - May so that they can enjoy some warm weather and think its Spring. You can also give the dry combs a good soak in water a few hours prior to planting. Don't keep them any longer because they might disintegrate. Because I'm planting hundreds of the combs, I dig a small trench - 5cm deep and as wide as you want. Then I scatter the combs into the trench- ideally you are suppose to place them with their feet down like a spider. The ranunculus need to get full sun for at least 5 hours or so. I found the best spots are areas which get good afternoon sun. They also do best in fertile but well drained spots like in a sloping garden bed. Water with a sea-weed fertilzer for best results - blood and bone and cow manure is best dug deep and not scattered onto the delicate plants. They do also require a good watering to prevent them from drying out and dying. It seems a lot of work. But the results are amazingly impressive. You get a massively wonderous huge field of colorful flowers like out of a dream. Cutting the flowers also encourages the plant to produce more flowers. I collect thousands of seeds after the season ends in Summer. Each flower will become a tumb made up of hundreds of seeds. Keep them in an old rice bag. Next year I chill the seed bag for about a week or so. Then I leave the bag in the sun for a day or so so that I can warm the seeds up. The seeds should be sowed when the soil temp is about 10C (15C is apparently too hot). Plant them in a depth of about 5cm. They will do best in good well drained fertile soil. They would probably do better in a pot with a top layer of saw dust. But if you are like me and have hundreds of thousands of seeds - just put them in the hessian bag -poke a few small holes in the bottom and vigorously shake the seeds out onto the flower beds then cover with a layer of top quality soil. Cheers, Crimson -- _____________________________ Everybody gets so much information all day long that they lose their common sense. Gertrude Stein (1874 - 1946) |
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