Anyhow, it's mid-summer now and the plants have mostly gone to seed. I pinched off as much as I could. The Cineraria will look fabulous in my backyard this winter and spring, but first I have to clean up the seed.
I've never done this before, but how hard can it be? I started outside, letting the evening breeze carry away the dusters and light chaff. I helped by lifting pinchfulls of the mix about ten inches up off the paper and slowly letting the mix fall while the breeze blew through it. The dense little seeds landed with a distinct tap while the larger, lighter particles just blew away.
This took care of about half the chaff.
And here's some of the seedless garbage I collected in a bowl.
At this point, I wasn't sure how to proceed. Get tweezers? Would that be crazy? Me sitting at the kitchen table tweezing out seeds slightly larger than salt grains? But that's what I did, the whole time thinking I should stop. And, thinking in turn, what would it say about me if I stopped before the job was done? That I'm a quitter? That I can't commit to doing tedious but eminently do-able work? Well, whatever. This was my first time. Perhaps I have more to learn. Next time will be better.
Anyhoo, I got hungry and this is where I stopped.
Not too bad, I think.
6 comments:
I've had trouble tracking down cineraria seeds, for the flashy blue ones, so is there anyway I could potentially get some of your blues?
Sure, but I don't think the seeds that come off the plant with blue flowers necessarily make more plants with blue flowers. Hoping for lots of blues myself, I seem to have ended up with mostly pinks and violets. The true blue of course, is very rare, or does not occur I am told.
Hello, my name is Douglas. I have been trying to track down some cineraria seed for a blue garden, but all I can find is mixed, and frankly, overpriced. If I were to send you a SASE, would you return it with some seed? One could only hope the blue flowers were visited by a bee from another blue. I can be reached at FreebieDP01@aol.com.
Hi chuck b.,
I just stopped by your site while looking for cineraria seed pics. I have a loads of collected seeds from my last lot of cineraria. I wanted to know if I am collecting the right stuff as seeds. Your site helped a good deal. Thank you for this site and the pics.
Regards,
Manashree
Assam, India.
Hi, my name is Helen and I live in the coastal mountains of California in Cazadero. I grew up with this plant and have been searching for some seeds or plants for a LONG time. I finally got Harmony Farms to locate some plants for me and hopefully will have seed next year. I would be happy to share with anyone else who has been searching. I will check the tag because ithas the variety name on it and "report back" Best, Helen
I've been collecting seeds for about a year. For some reason, many colors of cineraria grow in my yard. ...some blue-centered with white petals, some blue-centered with blue petals.
The seedlings are doing well. We'll see what the colors are for the respectively collected plants.
ejl
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