"I have germinated seed of C. miniata, C. rhexifolia and C. sulphurea in a soil-based compost and managed to grow some of them on to maturity, the C. sulphurea being the most recalcitrant. I read somewhere years ago that to keep them healthy you either need to grow them in partnership with another plant, which I have tried with little success, or feed them regularly with a high-N fertilizer to substitute for the N that they would normally receive from host plants. This works very well and I find in my wet climate and with a free-draining soil, that if I do not feed, say 4 to 5 times each growing season they grow less well, have yellower foliage, and generally 'go back'. " John Min temp 25F -8C John and Pam Good Bod Hyfryd Graiglwyd Road Penmaenmawr Conwy LL34 6ER 01492 622051 Tel. +44(0)1492 622051 John, Could you describe the details in your successful Castilleja seed germination? I collected an unknown-to-me species of Castilleja in southeastern Idaho in 2009. I rubbed the coating off the seed, sowed it on the surface of a peat-lite seed-starting mix, put the pot in a plastic bag, dug into my 3-foot snowpack, placed the pot on the surface of the ground (which was not frozen under all that snow) and put the 3 feet of snow back in place. After 7 weeks, I brought the pot indoors, placed it under a fluorescent light in a room that's between 55F and 60F. for 16 hours on and 8 hours off. I laid a piece of clear plastic film over the top to prevent excess evaporation of moisture. Germination began 12 days later. I don't know how many seeds I scattered on the surface of that pot but I got 16 healthy seedlings that I transplanted to the open garden about 6 weeks later. All were still alive and growing (albeit slowly) when the season shut down at the end of October. If your method differed from mine, I will send your procedure to my Austrian friend. He has not yet given up on adding these species to his botanical gardens. As I mentioned earlier, I have never germinated seeds of C. miniata, C. sulphurea or C. rhexifolia because they are naturally very numerous in my area. However, I can report the following observations: C. sulpurea seems to be a more aggressive colonizer than C. miniata, to the chagrin of my neighbor who has been trying to establish a colony of C. miniata for decades by scattering seed. She is now getting all my culled C. miniata plants, and things are finally looking up but I have to evict several C. sulphurea plants for every one C. miniata plant that I transplant to her garden or the former established plants will quickly overrun the new transplants. All 3 above-mentioned species grow in a wide variety of microclimates, the worst being under a large lodgepole pine and the best in my watered and fertilized formal gardens. C. rhexifolia and C. sulphurea seem especially adapted to the dry, acidic soil under that pine tree as every year I find more self-sown seedlings where other unrelated species routinely die. C. sulphurea seems to have a strong propensity to hybridize with C. rhexifolia, producing "flowers" (actually bracts) of bicolored pink and cream. I try to cull all the "unauthorized" C. sulphurea in that area to prevent this hybrid color variation. I have read elsewhere that C. sulphurea and C. miniata hybridize freely. I have not observed this in my area. The two species grow side-by-side throughout my neighborhood. The red C. miniata are always red; the creamy-white C. sulphurea are always creamy-white. Even the vegetative parts (leaves and stems) of these two species remain distinct. Before they go to seed, I mark a selection of C. miniata plants with a red twist-tie and the C. sulphurea plants with a white twist-tie so I can keep the collected seeds separate. However, the foliage of these two species is so distinct that those colored twist-ties are just added insurance that I have identified the plants correctly. Has anyone found that Castilleja seeds take more than one year to germinate -- either in pots or in the open garden? Jane Hendrix Mountain View Experimental Gardens Peak 7 Area - Breckenridge, Colorado USA Elevation: 10,000 feet USDA Zone: 4 Website: http://www.picturetrail.com/hendrix
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