Three batches of seedlings! July 11th ones are being tapered off watering. A heavy misting every 1.5-2 days.
August 23rd seedlings are being acclimated to lower humidity currently, I think I’ll be removing the cover entirely in a day or two. Most of these seeds are from Unusual Seeds, and I am not getting great germination on them. Ironically, the best germination is on some seeds I received as a gift. Half the pots have only 1-2 seedlings, the other half have 0. I got some oophytum nanum as a gift and those are the only ones with 60-70% germination. The 6 pots I planted of Mesa Garden cono mix have germinated fine.
August 31st seedlings I am starting to see some germination! The argyroderma fissum’s have almost all germinated (all from Mesa Garden). I like trying different sellers for seeds but so far almost every other seller has been a huge disappointment in terms of germination compared to Mesa Garden.
(Also I keep plants on the lower shelves in tupperwares to prevent my cats from eating them 😂 didn’t stop my youngest cat from still trying to stick her paws into the pots from up top like she was fishing tho 😂 )
Where do you get your seeds from, mesembros?
by CarneyBus
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Nowhere else I’ve found with a public online storefront has anywhere close to the selection MG has. I keep an eye on the CSSA seed depot because sometimes they have an unusual “one per customer” offering, but they aren’t really focused in mesembs. And the random etsy seller sometimes gets their hands on something interesting.
The other source I see talked about is the Mesemb Study Group organization based in the UK. Apparently they have shipped to the US in the past but you it’s illegal here to buy any CITES-listed species, and everything is in flux with international shipping to the US right now because of the tarrifs.
There is a USDA small seed lot permit that allows you to get your internationally imported seeds sent directly to a USDA inspection site instead of paying for a phytosanitary certificate, but I haven’t exhausted my list of plants I want to grow from MG yet so I haven’t fully explored that. I suppose the ideal arrangement would be to have that permit and a source directly in South Africa but again, that’s a big undertaking compared to a few mouse clicks with MG.