Contributors

Friday, October 16, 2015

Cardinal Flower Propagation by Brett Auttenberry

A guest post from Brett Auttenberry, hotriculturalist butterfly gardener extraordinaire.

T'is Autumn. That means t'is time to start gathering fruit and seeds for this year's stratification season.
Last season I had great success propagating Lobelia cardinalis, Cardinal Flower: 147 seedlings from one seed pod! The following is my method...

Collect the seed pods (pic 2) when they are fully ripened on the plant. They will be brown and dry. Carefully remove them either with a pinch or a good sharp pare of snips. Lay the pod on a white piece of paper and splitit open. Many tiny spherical seed will spill out. Allow them to sit out and air dry for a time to make sure no moisture is present.
Place the seeds in a small sealed container into the refrigerator for 6-8 weeks. This is called "cold stratification" and is required for many species including Cardinal Flower.
When the stratification time is done take a shallow container (pic 3), about an inch deep, with perforations made in the bottom. This will be your germination tray. Typically perforations are meant to allow for drainage. In this case they allow water to seep up into the container. Fill the container with a good seeding medium and sprinkle the seeds evenly as possible over the medium. The seeds are so small they will almost disappear. At this point DO NOT WATER. Watering will displace and clump the seeds very close together.
Take a second container (pics below) big enough to hold the germination tray and puncture the sides about 3/8"-1/2" up the side. This will be your catch basin. The holes up the side allow the basin to keep a consistent water depth without flooding the germination tray.


Place the seeded germination tray into the catch basin and pour water into the catch basin, allowing the water to hydrate the medium in the germination tray from below.
Once the seeds germinate allow them to grow in the medium until they have 3-5 leaves. Gently remove about a square inch of the medium with the seedlings out of the tray at a time and separate each seedling. You can bare root them if needed in order to separate them. Place each seedling into its own seed cell in 6-pack flats.
Place flats in a large shallow storage container with punctures about 1" up the sides (pic below). Again, this will keep a consistent water depth to keep the soil moist/wet. Until plants are established it's still a good idea to not water directly over the plants but directly into the storage container and allow the water to seep upwards into the cells.
Once the plants have well established roots repot them into 4" pots and place in the same storage container set up. You will, of course, need to have twice as many now that they're in the larger pots.
I hope you have fun!!

Questions can be sent to canpsbr@gmail.com to be forwarded directly to Brett.

Thursday, October 1, 2015

October Updates

Greetings all!

It is a FANTASTIC month for natives all around so get ready! Cardinal Flower is in full bloom at Burden and Frenchtown, along with Bear's Foot and Crownbeard and a number of others. Activities abound. 

Cardinal Flower on the Burden Woods Trail


Our Field Trip this month will be to Maypop Hill Nursery / Gloster Arboretum on October 17th. Maypop Hill is our nearest and dearest native plant nursery, run by Betty Miley, a co-founder of the Capital Area Native Plant Society and long-time native planter. Gloster Arboretum, just down the road, boasts a number of rare and unusual plants for our region, including wild Mountain Laurel, Silky Camelia and Bigleaf Magnolia. You're in for a real treat with this one.

carpool group will leave Baton Rouge around 7:00 a.m. to arrive at Maypop Hill Nursery around 8:00. We will tour the property while waiting for stragglers and then head on to Gloster Arboretum around 9:00. We will return to Maypop Hill for lunch, where Betty Miley will provide Taco Soup. You can bring chips, appetizers, desserts, etc. as pot luck. On the way back some folks might want to visit the Mary Ann Brown Preserve, which is not far.


Heres the flier:





Plant Fest @ Hilltop Arboretum Oct 3-4
CANPS has teamed up with Hilltop Arboretum and First Graphix, LLC to help label native plants so that you can be sure what you are buying is native. Look for plants with "Certified Native" tag, for plants native to Louisiana. There is an outstanding selection of regional natives at this sale and you don't want to miss it. CANPS will have a table to provide additional information on Saturday, October 3rd. Volunteers are welcome but sign up soon at http://goo.gl/forms/96wT9GMvRK.

Cutleaf Coneflower (Rudbeckia laciniata), a wildflower of rich woods, for sale at Hilltop


CANPS Board Meeting Oct 7th @ Hilltop Arboretum from 6-7pm
We have our board meetings on the first Wednesday of every month. We are exploring a permanent business meeting location at Hilltop Arboretum. This time around we will be planning for fall activities, discussing membership dues/benefits and fall leadership elections. 

Central South Native Plant Conference Oct 29-31st @ the Birmingham Botanic Gardens, Alabama 
A few members will be driving up to this AMAZING conference for Oct 30-31. Treat yourself and come along to meet the movers and shakers of Central-Southeastern native plant movement. Inspiring talks, exquisite native landscaping and field trips to pristine habitats that you will remember for years to come. RSVP at http://goo.gl/forms/96wT9GMvRK.



The native plant propagation program (next workday Oct 18th 4-6pm @ Burden Botanic Gardens) has picked up and we are in full-force fruit and seed collecting mode. If you have fruit or seed in your garden or see some on roadsides, please help us gather them up. For an upcoming fall flowering meadow mix we will need ironweed, boneset, blue mistflower and crownbeard in bulk. Remember to only take 10% of fruits and seeds and leave the remaining 90%  for wildlife and the general health of the plant population. Read more about the ethics of seed collecting at http://canps.weebly.com/exchanging-and-collecting-seeds.html 

As usual, we cannot possibly fit all of the events out there in one blast. Please check: http://canps.weebly.com/calendar.html for additional events.

Best wishes,

Matthew and Lauren
Capital Area Native Plant Society
Carolina Crownbeard (Verbesina walteri) at Blackwater Conservation Area