How do you folks support your small plants while they're growing?

 

Example, sunflowers. I've got a couple of those 24-segment propogation
trays, each segment has a newly-sprouted sunflower coming up. (I planted
some others a few weeks ago but they all snapped in half).. so they need
support.

I've cut lengths of green plant sticks and stuck one in each segment, made a
kind of "noose" with the green garden wire and looped one end around the
shoot just below the two leaves, and the other around the stick but it's
incredibly fiddly and I'm not sure they're going to last.

Are there any ready-made/easier solutions for holding shoots up until
they're big enough to transplant? And are sunflowers *ever* strong enough to
hold themselves up or will I need to use longer sticks as they grow? Some of
these are going to be 1 metre, others taller.

Many thanks.

 


'Mentalguy2k8[_2_ Wrote:

those 24-segment

If you're having problems, it sounds as if the plants are having too
much water
and food and not enough light, so they're growing long and
thin in an effort to
reach better light.




--
kay

 



Perhaps you should be planting the individual seeds in larger pots - they
are quite large and propogation trays may not be the best place to start
them.

If they are in individual pots then supporting them with sticks is also much
easier.

However, as Kay says they shouldn't really be snapping off.
They manage to grow outdoors without this happening.
Have you considered planting some directly into the ground?
Or are they all destined for pots?

Cheers

Dave R
--
No plan survives contact with the enemy.

Helmuth von Moltke the Elder

 

On Thu, 15 Jul 2010 11:39:44 +0100, "David WE Roberts"


I start sunflowers off in 3 inch pots. Their roots develop very
quickly and they'll soon become rootbound in those little cell trays.

But I'm picking up your reference to "the two leaves". The first two
leaves that form are called a "seed leaf" (or "cotyledon" for the
technically minded). They're not true leaves but serve a purpose in
the initial feeding of the seedling. They'll be quite llight and their
weight isn't going to damage a healthy seedling.

If the plants are keeling over at this stage, I'd guess that you've
got a touch of "damping off" disease - a fungus that can kill off
young seedlings which just keel over.  Not exactly "snapping" as you
describe but the same effect. Type "damping off" into your browser's
search box and you should call up a number of web articles on that.

Jake

 



Thanks to everyone for your help.

I'm confident it's not a lack of sunlight because the first ones (and
current) were in direct sun from about 11am to sunset. But they were the
"bring them home from school in a pot of dirt" type thing, so possibly they
were from a bag of hamster food and/or the compost not great. Don't know if
it's the damping-off disease, I've got some "stock" and sweetpea that seem
to have done very well from seeds under the same circumstances.

I bought some "proper" mixed sunflower seeds and some seedling compost, so
far have got 23 out of 24 (8 each of 4 different types) growing well, if the
sun ever comes back I'm hopeful for better results! They all look
thicker/stronger than the first batch already, so fingers crossed!

They're all between 1-2 inches so far, should I start putting them into
larger containers yet and is there a good technique for picking up the whole
segment of compost/root in one go without damaging the plant or the root? I
might just cut the trays open if there's no better way to do it without
disturbing things too much.