Starting winter growing seed/Veltheimia seed
Lee Poulsen (Tue, 10 Feb 2004 16:56:01 PST)

On Feb 10, 2004, at 1:45 PM, Hamish Sloan wrote:

I had the same experience you have had. I paid good money two or three
years in a row to several different British seed sellers (trustworthy
ones, the ones many of you, myself included, have obtained many
different species if seeds from over the years). I never got a single
germination from the Tecophilaea seeds. Finally, a couple of years ago
I had seeds from my own plants, and some packets of seeds from a couple
of these same sources (Archibalds and Pottertons)--that I had saved in
the refrigerator from orders the previous autumn. Based on some
discussions that Mary Sue initiated (possibly a TOW?), I planted them
all out in late September/very early October while the weather here in
Southern California was still quite warm during the day (80s F./30 C.,
50s at night) and about a month before the first rain fell. I left them
outside fully exposed to the changing autumn seasonal weather here.
Sometime in December after the winter rains had begun in November, all
the little pots of seeds started sprouting.

So I think they really need that warm daytime weather with the
gradually increasingly chilly nights to start with, before being
exposed to the cool days and rain of the beginning of the mediterranean
style rainy season in order to initiate germination. In my previous
attempts, by the time I got the seeds from the autumn orders it was
already November or later and the days were no longer warm. It didn't
occur to me to try holding them until the following early autumn.

--Lee Poulsen
Pasadena area, California, USDA Zone 9-10