The cut flower market is really growing you see in the Northwest many small and large farms stands going up along side roads and different places. There is many kinds of flowers that will make nice bouquets. We want to list a few that many people like and make a very nice mix. We offer all these from seeds in our store we are not just a seeds sell we grow many of these in our own nursery. We grow hundreds of cell trays a year we like to plant in 200 cell and 288 this works out very well for us in our germination chambers. As far as some of the nice cut flowers to start from seeds Lisianthus can be very hard but well worth it. We will talk a bit how we start pelleted Lisianthus seeds our favorite type is Lisianthus Super Magic and Lisianthus Mariachi there is a good mix of colors in these series. We have tried many things to start seeds and some work well others not so well but you learn. We like to use Pro Mix FPX to start our seeds we use the loose 2.8 cubic foot bags. We run this through our potting machine with spraying water on it when it mixes we do add vermiculite also to it helps hold the water. We also use Microbial Remedy this works very well. We are going to talk on how we start our seeds for Lisianthus.
First step is to get a good cell tray and we like the 200 cell they work very well for us we fill the tray with a good mix of Pro Mix FPX it is a nice light seeds starting mix for plugs.
Second thing we do is make sure the tray is water well and moist when soil is mixed this helps with the tray not checker boarding.
Third thing is to plant the seeds on pelleted seeds just place them on top soil these need light for germination a good grow light works very well. These will need a germination temp of 68f to 75f and we find it takes us 12 to 18 days for germination.
Fourth thing we like to do is cover tray with a propagation dome or plastic so make sure tray is water well when you do this. Lisianthus will take about 6 to 8 weeks before you can transplant them into larger pots. The bloom time is different on each type. We will share a few links that may help you with growing these awesome cut flowers of Lisianthus.
Microbial to add to seed starting mix https://microbialsciencelaboratories.com/
Ball Seeds Culture Guide https://www.ballseed.com/PDF/15539_PIG_ENG_BSC_LR.pdf
A great seed mix https://www.pthorticulture.com/en/products/pro-mix-fpx-biostimulant/
Our website we offer over 200 kinds of Lisianthus www.trailingpetunia.com
We are going to list a good list of flowers that will make great cut flowers for bouquets we sell many varieties of these on our website take a look.
- Snapdragon https://www.trailingpetunia.com/search?q=snapdragon&options%5Bprefix%5D=last (recommend the new legend series nice long stems and many are double snapdragon)
- Zinna https://www.trailingpetunia.com/search?q=zinnia&options%5Bprefix%5D=last
10. Echinacea https://www.trailingpetunia.com/search?q=Echinacea&options%5Bprefix%5D=last
These are some of our favorite kinds of cut flower these all grow different in some grow zones. If you are looking for seeds we offer many kinds we have sold on Ebay and Etsy for many years and we started our seed website to tender to the small grower to larger growers. If you are looking for a seed in larger amounts let us know and we can try to see if we can get it for you. We only ship to USA and Canada. Our next blog we will try to hit on some other topics.