The Beginning

A few years ago I first discovered protea. I was instantly drawn to these amazing flowers. Lack of time and space while at school has kept me from buying these fascinating plants, but after years of wishing I could grow them I decided to take the plunge and buy some seed. I still have one year left at UCLA but I figure the plants wont get too big over the course of a year so I can manage them on weekends. I did some searching online and looked at a lot of seed from different nurseries selling on eBay. After getting discouraged about the expense of seed on eBay I ventured out to the abyss of the World Wide Web and eventually happened upon the website for Fine Bush People. I found their seed to be much better priced at 15 cents a seed and was happy to see their shipping was also fairly priced. After getting a little carried away I ended up purchasing 200 seed. Don’t forget to add the smoke primers to your order if you buy seeds. You will need those to help your seed germinate.

Each order comes with very easy to follow instructions

On June 9^th I put the nut like seeds of leucadendron and leucospermum in the water with the smoke primer. I let them soak for a total of 30-40 hours. They have a waxy seed coat that prevents water from getting in and the directions suggested giving them more time to soften the seed coat so it could be gently rubbed off. I soaked the seeds for 24 hours and then removed the seed coat. The directions suggested soaking in regular water for 24 hours and then smoke primer water for 24 hours but I opted to give the seeds more smoke exposure and soaked them with the primer the whole time. The ‘fury’ seeds of protea I soaked for 24 hours in water and smoke primer.

I ordered 10 seeds of each kind except for protea cynaroides I ordered 20 seeds. In order to keep each seed type separated I put each in its own plastic 2 ounce cup for soaking. According to directions each smoke primer disk is good for 100 seeds or 50ml of water. Measured out it comes out to just enough water to cover the tops of seeds in each cup. I just put what looked like enough water for each seed type and did not bother with measuring.

I put tape on each cup and wrote the name of each plant on a cup before putting the seeds in.

 I also took each smoke primer disk and cut it into ten equal parts so that each cup would get its own slice of primer. 

I added the water first so I could pour out any excess then put the slice of primer in. I let each primer soak for about five minutes and swirled it in the cup to start releasing the smoke and mix it evenly.  I then added the seeds. Some if not all the seeds tried to float due to water tension so I spent a lot of time going between each cup and pushing the seeds into the water until they were saturated and stopped floating.

I made a mix of two parts peat moss, one part vermiculite and one part perlite. I used a nursery plant tray with smaller holes so it would hold my mixture. I also decided to try the idea of using egg trays to germinate seed. I only had four egg trays so I planted each one with one type of seed. The rest of the seeds I divided out in the large seed tray. I used plastic forks with tape as my plant tags. I found they were a cheap solution and were very easy to stab into the soil.

The temperature during the time you give your seeds to germinate is very important.  According to the directions seeds germinate during the cold Western Cape South African winter period. The seed therefore needs to be kept cool during germination. Nut like seeds need to be kept at 59- 68º F during the day and 39-50º F at night. The hairy seeds need to be at 39-50º F. At the time of planting we had cool 60º F nights in San Diego but I decided that was not cool enough especially when temperatures jumped to 80º F.  I opted to store my seed in my basement because it keeps a steady cool temp regardless of the outside temps. My guess is it’s a consistent 50-60º F.

Here is what I got

Protea eximia

Protea longifolia

Protea roupelliae
Protea scolymocephala
Protea venusta

Protea burchellii

Protea compacta

Protea cynaroides

Protea grandiceps

Protea neriifolia

Protea nitida

Protea repens

Leucadendron album
Leucadendron dregei
Leucadendron sessile
Leucadendron discolor
Leucospermum conocarpodendron
Leucospermum cordifolium

Leucospermum reflexum

Hopefully in 1-3 months I will have good news and be able to post fun new pictures of my protea.