Smoke and Mirrors Issue 1 - Lobelia Seed Treatment
Lobelia Seed Treatment
by Mark Lysne
Lobelia cardinalis seeds must be cold stratified (seeds must be in an environment with moisture and temperature between 32 and 40 degrees Farenheit) for eight weeks to get good germination. If you were to prepare an outside bed and scatter the seeds on top of the bed in the autumn, they would germinate in the spring. The only problem with this approach is that animals can disturb the bed and you'll have another problem with weeds.
The approach that I take is to plant the seeds in little cups, place the cups in sandwich bags (to prevent drying out), and then place the whole assembly in the refrigerator (not freezer) for the stratification period.
If you don't want seeds in your refrigerator, you could then place the assembly outside in the shade so the sun will not cook them on warm sunny days. When the weather starts warming up in late winter, I would then start checking them every day and finally bring them indoors or into the greenhouse when they start germinating.
I find that I have much better germination (important if you only have a small number of seeds) when I use the refrigerator. At the state park where I work as a gardener, that is the method we use for all seeds requiring stratification.
