Seed #6 - Transplant

Seed #6 has always been the tallest. While under the grow lights, it's really grown significantly, now working on its first branches.

When transplanting from a cel-pack, it's important to (carefully) use a razor to cut the plastic away from the root ball. These little plants are still so delicate. If you disturb the soil, it could tear the thin root hairs - if you're lucky enough as to not snap the stem first. When cutting, you need to remember that there may be roots up against the plastic, so try to keep the razor from slicing into the soil. You're probably going to lose a few root ends, but it's better than killing the seedling all together.

Seed #5 - Transplant

Another little guy that's done just fine under the grow lights. I gotta say that if not for the lights, I think I would have lost half of my seed seedlings while on vacation. They weren't growing very fast, and the damp peat moss was starting to damp them off, rotting the roots away.

The transplanted seedlings are going to love their new soil. I have a few more that are ready to move - I'll post them as they move.

Seed #14 - Transplant

The grow lights have been kind to this little guy -
I transplanted him today as well.

It was really nice seeing the progress in the root structure. If you look closely, you can see the start of at least two branches.

Seed #9 - Transplant

It's moving day! After the seedlings have a few sets of secondary leaves, they should have enough of a root system to hold together the cel-pack root ball. I just watered my seedlings yesterday with diluted fertilizer from bottom-up, so I was pretty confident that the soil would stick. I used a razor blade to carefully cut away the cel-pack, as to not damage this little guy.

I then put together a well-drained soil mixture, consisting of:

• cheap potting soil
• vermiculite
• perlite
  
• sphagnum peat moss
• sand (just a bit)

and carefully planted this little guy in a six-inch pot.

This last photo is intentionally out of focus to show the soil mixture, rather than the seed leaves.

Seed #9 - How Quickly They Grow Up...

After three weeks under the grow lights, just about all of my seedlings have taken off, growing several sets of secondary leaves. Before the grow lights, their growth had slowed to a crawl, and they were starting to damp off.

A great way to avoid damping off is to get the seedlings to grow as quickly as possible and to transplant them out of the cel-packs after they have a few sets of secondary leaves.

Road Trip!

I'm going on a two week vacation, so I had to pack up my toddlers for someone to babysit. Believe me, this was a little embarrassing!

Grow Lights!

I decided it's time to take this to a new level! I had planned on building this seed starting bench, but realized it would cost me around $300. Instead, I put together a simple rig of 40W, four-foot hanging fluorescents from a shelf in my garage. Each bulb set has one cool white and one soft white, to spread out the spectrum of light for the sprouts. I have the lights on a timer to turn on at five in the morning, and off again at nine at night -- sixteen hours of good light per day. I have plenty of room for at least three more seed trays - and I have no problem doubling this setup if needed. I just hope the DEA doesn't get the wrong idea! I swear, I'm just growing giant sequoias!

... Well, that, and coast redwood, bristlecone pine, dawn redwood, and red maple...

Seed #4 - I Really Need to Be More Careful

Seed #4 has been one of my sequoia superstars. I just finished setting up my new grow lights to help speed up growth in my sprouts, and I might have accidentally killed this little guy. I tried gently wetting the sprouts with a spray bottle, and when the spray hit this one, he fell straight over. This is the second time this has happened to me. The first one didn't make it but another day or so. I've propped him up with a toothpick, and am going to wait it out a day.

Tomorrow, I'm going to try the equivalent of open heart surgery -- I'm going to see if I can put just the right amount of soil around the base of the sprout to help hold him up. I have no idea what the chances of him making it are, but I'm not that optimistic. If seed #4 dies, I'm down to only five sequoias (from seeds).

It's getting more and more difficult to keep these sprouts alive. I might be watering them too much - or, maybe they're not getting enough light. Whatever the problem is, they're not talking. I'm done using spray bottles, that's for sure. Instead, I've found that watering them from underneath works really well. I fill the tray with about an inch of water, and wait for the driest cel-pack to moisten, usually after thirty seconds.

In any case, I'm not looking forward to another sequoia dying. I think it's time to order a few hundred more seeds, and really go nuts. If they're going to give up on me, then I'm going to fight back by bringing in reinforcements!

Time for Sun and Fertilizer

I think I've been coddling my sprouts a little too much. They're over a month old and haven't seen any direct sunlight. Each of them has a set of secondary leaves, and are seemingly healthy and eager for more growth. So, I've started giving them small doses of direct sunlight, and much more outdoor shade. I know I'm crazy, but I'm convinced that a few of my sprouts grew a tiny bit from their time outside today.

Also, since the soil is probably starting to lose its nutrients, I gave each seedling about a tablespoon and a half of 1/4 -strength fertilizer (24-8-16 water soluble from Giant-Sequoia.com). If they don't react negatively to the treatment, I'll continue to apply small amounts of diluted fertilizer every seven to fourteen days.

I also tried out watering the sprouts from underneath, which seemed to work well. To do so, I placed the block of nine cel-packs in an inch of water, and waited for the top to become moist (fifteen to thirty seconds). I'm going to try this out every other day, rather than spray the sprouts twice a day with a spray bottle.

Cold Stratification

It's been several weeks since any of my remaining sequoia seeds have germinated in their damp coffee filter baggies. Of the sixteen germinated seeds, I'm down to only six that are still alive. Most recently, my first sprout, seed #1 just shriveled up and died. As silly as it sounds, that really brought me down.

So, I'm down to six sprouts and about eighty seeds. I can either throw out the seeds, buy more and start over, or I can try to turn around the seeds I have and see if I can get them to sprout.

It's likely that a third of those seeds are still viable, but dormant. In nature, conifers have a clever trick to avoid entire crops of seedlings to dying off in a catastrophe such as fire or drought...they don't all sprout at the same time. One way to break this dormancy is to mimic natural conditions that the seeds would go through, such as winter coldness. This is called cold stratification, and can be achieved by placing the seeds in moist peat moss (or other mixtures) in a refrigerator at a few degrees above freezing for one to three months.

Note: this isn't normally necessary for vegetable and flower seeds, since they've been cultivated to grow without the dormancy. For more information and other seed-starting tips, I highly recommend the following links: Seed Germination and Growing Conifers From Seed.

I split out my seeds into two groups, then dropped them into sealed baggies, each with a few tablespoons of seed starting soil mix. I sprayed spring water into the baggies until the soil mixture was moist, and stored them away in the back of my refrigerator.

Waiting two months isn't going to be easy, but it'll be interesting to see the difference that cold stratification makes. After that time, I'll probably keep the seeds in the baggies until they've sprouted, then move the individual sprouts into cel-packs. The coffee filter baggies worked really well, but only for the initially-sprouting seeds. After a couple of months, it's hard to stave off mold and frustrating keeping the baggies moist.

Seed #6 - Still on Top

This little guy towers over the other sprouts by at least an inch and now shows a healthy set of secondary leaves.

Current State of the Union

When I first started growing trees from sprouts a couple months ago, I didn't expect myself to go this far. My original goal was to photograph each tree sprout every few days, so you could track its progress with tag filters. That worked for the first month. At this point, here's what has sprouted so far (with more seeds still to germinate):

• 20 bristlecone pines - (9 outdoors in rocky soil, 11 indoors in seed-starting soil) between newly-sprout and 2 inches high
  
• 9 coast redwoods - between newly-sprout and 1 inch high
• 1 dawn redwood - about 1 inch high
• 7 giant sequoias (from seed) - between 2-3 inches high
• 13 giant sequoias (purchased as 1-2 year old seedlings) - between 6-15 inches tall

So, I'm at the point now where I can recognize that it's not feasible to keep track of each sprout anymore. I'm going to try to tone it down a bit and focus more on star-performing sprouts and my favorite photos... that, or completely lose what little sanity I have remaining...

Seedlings Showing New Growth

My one and two-year-olds that I bought as seedlings from Welker's Nursery are really doing well in their new pots. They've been fairly inactive this past month, but recently, almost every branch on the seedlings has sprouted about an inch of new growth.

I Might Have Gone Overboard

It's not until about two months into my obsessive hobbies that I realize I've gone too far. Upon checking my bristlecone pine, giant sequoia, dawn redwood, coast redwood, and sunflower seeds for sprouts (while waiting for my purple pitcher plant, sensitive plant, and venus flytrap seeds to arrive in the mail)... I started thinking to myself... Have I gone crazy? I mean, I shouldn't have a problem finding a place to plant one hundred giant redwoods... After all, I do have about ten square feet of back yard.

Seed 4 - Fun with a Tripod

I just dusted off my old tripod, so I thought I'd try some extreme close-ups. This little guy is still my favorite.

Seed #15 - Cotyledons Opening Upwards

Seed #14 - Secondary Leaves

Seed #10 - Straightening Out

This one is almost pointing straight up, but the seed coat still seems to have a pretty firm grasp. I'm never too optimistic about the seed coat coming off when it's on that tight.

Seed #9 - Secondary Leaves

Seed #7 - Goodbye, Old Friend...Hey, Nice Roots!

I was sad to see #7 go, but in his passing, I got a peak at some pretty cool roots. All of my sprouts that emerged with the seed coats have had a tougher time than the others, but on top of that, this guy's root system didn't go very deep at all. I wonder if that had a hand in his early death - too little surface moisture could have done him him.