Part One: Why Seeds?

It seems that everyone who has been infected with the ‘Cactus & Succulent’ bug eventually displays the most common symptom: an irresistible urge to acquire more plants. The first indications of this difficulty usually occur when you visit your first Show and Sale. Surely your companions noticed the warning signs, but alas, they too were infected. These symptoms can continue for quite some time but at some point we try to increase our collection without opening our pocket books. Who hasn’t tried sticking a Beavertail pad or a Jade Plant stem into a pot or pulling off a ‘pup’ from an Echinopsis? These are good ways to satisfy your need, but, there is another that can provide even more satisfaction – seeds.

I am always a bit surprised at the lack of enthusiasm for growing succulents from seed. I have to remind myself that our hobby is not the same as one that grows vegetables our cottage gardens. Those hobbies typically require a knowledge of seed rearing in order to acquire the plants you need, ours does not. In our hobby, the seed is primarily grown by nurseries as well as by those ‘guys’ that seem to know more about succulents than any earthly person should (I’m convinced that some of them are not from this world). However, this does not mean that you can’t try it yourself. It’s not always as easy as sticking a Hens-and-Chicks offset into a pot, but it is often more rewarding.

Vegetative propagation (not using seeds) certainly has its value. Cuttings, offsets, and even grafting are commonly done at home (another vegetative method is tissue culture, but this is usually not feasible for the amateur, though it is possible). These methods are good if you want to increase your numbers of a certain species or variety. If you have a hybrid Echinopsis that everyone adores, you can root offsets and spread it around (be careful of patented plants, they’re kind of like copying your favorite music; no one notices if you keep it to yourself, but when you start to make money from it you can get in trouble). One thing that vegetative propagation can’t do is produce new varieties, this is the realm of sexual propagation – seeds.

Seeds are generally inexpensive, easy to grow, quick to germinate, and, believe it or not, readily available. Growing seeds does not require much space or even a lot of sophisticated equipment. It does require more attentiveness than you ordinarily give your mature plants, but then, they’re just babies. With seeds you can grow species that are not readily available at shows. Some succulents, like Astrophytum, do not readily produce offsets or do not branch. This means that seeds are the way to go. Seeds can be an inexpensive way to start a large number of a desirable variety. If you collect and grow your own seed, you can fiddle with cross pollination and produce your own wonderful hybrids. There is always a bit of variation in your seedlings, which allows you to pick out the best colored or patterned Lithops from the group without fighting over it at the Show and Sale tables.

All that said, I don’t want this to sound too easy. There are some details to which you must pay attention. Seedlings are much more easily damaged by drought or over-watering. In addition, other perils like attacks from snails and birds don’t just disfigure your plants, it annihilates them. A dropped pot may be a temporary setback for an adult, but it often means death to many seedlings. Seedlings take time to grow up. Unlike a blooming adult you buy at the show, your seedling could take several years to reach blooming size (there are exceptions, some Mesembs will bloom in a year or less from seed). Though they don’t require much space when they’re young, as seedlings grow, they require much more space, which leads to the hardest thing of all – culling.

Culling is the removal of unwanted plants, though I shouldn’t say ‘unwanted.’ They are the undesirable, the less pretty, the not-quite-as-good-as-the-rest. Mostly they are the ones you just can’t find any more room for. You are forced to pick out some and throw them away (many will be too young to give away). Fortunately this usually happens when they are still very small and you haven’t had time to become too attached.

The attachment you feel towards the plants you have raised is where the real rewards are. A plant that you have watched come out of the seed, grow into a recognizable plant, and then bloom gives you a great sense of accomplishment.

Next month I will write about where you can obtain some seed and how you should plant it once you have it in Part two: What Do I Do Now?

--------------------------------------------------------