Snapdragons

No, but I definitely want to try it. I've done it with Zinnias for the first time last year, and that works very well.

Think I'll go outside and see if any of my snaps have acceptable cutting material. I do have some seeds newly planted, but it will take forever for them to get large.

Here is a video of someone making snap cuttings with pinchings (yes, spellcheck, 'pinchings' is a word, lol) from very young plants:

www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUjvrdMhAYc

I have had the Rocket snap survive winter in my flower garden, but that is a sheltered spot. When Pinetree quit offering Rocket seed by color, I quit growing snaps. I finally gave up and ordered the mixed package.

I went and looked... Currently my snaps are being ravaged by early rust. Going to have to take them all out soon. They just crash when they get very infected. I suspect the past week of 90+ temps and the winds did not help. I did however find 6 small side shoots with only 'a little' rust. Did trim them up and put them into a pony cell pack, and that into it's own personal humidity container (a clear plastic gallon water bottle with the end cut as a closing flap. I don't expect much because of the rust however.

Wow. Amazing. I had no idea they could live that long. I once had one plant live for about 2 years. A dark red one, reminiscent of Black Prince. Narrow leaves, dark foliage, really pretty.

My seeds get sown in August, get planted out in Sept/oct (aka, when they are ready), bloom their heads off over winter, then decline quickly and badly and are removed in the spring when the rust hits.

The past couple years I've sown both mixes of Potomic and Rocket. Last year the plants got mixed together, this year I kept them apart for no reason. I was disappointed by the low variety of color in the Rockets. White, 2 shades of yellow, a light and darker pink, and a lavendar. No orange/bronze, no red, no wine... It was very pretty, but also very bland. I don't remember what seed company was the source.   

I was looking around at individual colors at Johnny's and was shocked at the price for some of them. For a pretty hybrid bronze for example, they were asking almost $5 for 50 seeds. That's barely a pinch.

So I've decided to collect my own seed from various colors of interbred Potomac and Rocket hybrid plants going to seed right now. I have no idea what the colors will be since seed from hybrids can be, uh, creative. But I've already collected about a million seeds   , and have planted some and will grow them in the coming months as 'one and done' to get a feel for the colors. Kind of exciting to see the results. 

A lot of our annuals are perennials in their native climate. Even tomatoes can live 3 years or more  in areas where the low temps are in the 60's, Frost is the limiting factor, along with disease.

That's ~ 10 cents a seed. Wonder what that would be per pound. Hmmm!

Johnny's site says 193,800 seeds per ounce. That would be 3,100,800 per pound x $.10 each=$310,080. per pound.
Gold price today is $1963.05/oz, which is $31,408.80 per pound
Palladium price is $2594.33/ oz, which is $41,509.28 per pound
Can't trade in Californium, but...
Rhodium is $19,000/ oz which is $304,000 per pound, a little more than Snapdragon seeds, but you can grow your own snapdragon seeds, so that might be what you should invest in.

That pale yellow is one of my favorites. As is the Potomac Apple Blossom (white with pale pink lip).  I want however the full, gaudy display.     

Mixes of a variety can be suspect. I think sometimes they just add what they have and you don't always get the full array, or in equal amounts. A year ago when I purchased Iceland Poppies from Johnny's they said their mix at that time did not include white. Good on them for saying that. This year it's back (last I looked). 





That's especially true of garden plants here in SoCal. I currently have so-called annual Scabiosa in their second year. As well as a giant tomato plant from last year laden with green fruits turning red again. Had one for lunch yesterday. A few years ago it was a surprise when my lima bean plants refused to die. If I had known they were perennials, I would not have planted them in the front yard, lol. 

These tender perennials however get sort of ratty looking in the second year and it's often time to rip them out. In a frost free Mediterranean environment like here, it's usually available water that determines life-span of these sorts of plants so they are functionally annuals and are generally treated as such. I had 2 varieties of Rudbeckia last year, as well as some yarrow and feverfew - all light perennials. They died however because someone did not keep them watered. 

There seem to be more flowers that make successful cuttings than I realized. So add Cosmos to the list with snaps, zinnia, and I saw a lady make cuttings from sweetpeas too.

I did take cuttings from 6 snapdragon plants a week ago. Not the best of material, and I've not been too careful with them. But they are not dead yet, so that's something. I just checked, and there are no roots visible coming from the bottom of the cells. They are in a small humidity chamber, and I mist them occasionally.

Do snaps need to be staked?