Mallee Native Plants
I love propagating plants! The idea of getting something for nothing works well in gardening! Digging up a clump and breaking it into many pieces which you then plant elsewhere or share with a friend or pot up for sale is fun. Picking a seed pod, waiting for it to open and shed the seeds inside, sowing the seeds and then planting out lots of little plants is very satisfying. Taking cuttings from plants, poking them into an appropriate potting mix, then discovering the roots on the bottom of each little piece is miraculous. I feel excited every time I upend the contents of a pot of cuttings, or seedlings, in preparation for potting on into individual pots.
What an amazing thing to happen. A large tree in your local playground or park probably grew from a seed smaller than the size of a full stop on this page!
In this blog I hope to pass on many ideas of what plants you can try in your garden, whatever its size. Also hints and tips and information about growing Australian native plants in particular and what could make gardening with these plants more of a pleasure. Not to mention the side benefits to be gained from being outside getting dirty.
My nursery, Mallee Native Plants Nursery, is where I work. The website for it is being worked on now. I hope soon to have a catalogue available on line, when son Simon (IT Whiz) gets it ready for me to operate.
We have some Mallee Seeds(?), variety unknown, from the south coast of WA which we would like to propogate. They are around 5mm long by 2-3mm wide, oval shaped, black in colour with a red tip at the pod end. The pods are approximately 6cm long, 5mm wide and contain 7 seeds. Pod is light brown – caramel in colour.
As they are a native we are unsure if they need to be heated before they will grow, and how to get them to germinate. Can anyone help us out?
When the seed and chaff have fallen from the seed capsule (put the capsules in a paper bag until they have opened), all the contents can be sown on the surface of the seed raising mix. Sometimes it is difficult to determine what is seed and what is chaff. Either very lightly cover the seed and chaff with extra seed raising mix or washed small gravel to prevent the lot from being washed out of the pot during watering. The pot can either be watered from the top, or sat in a container with water half way up the pot. As the seed germinates, reduce the level of water. Surface of the mix should be just moist, not soggy. Transplant to individual pots when 2 sets of true leaves have grown in addition to the seedling leaves which first appear.
Mallee (Eucalyptus) seeds do not need heat treatment. Seed from very cold areas sometimes needs to be stored in the fridge for a while.