Rescue mission

[AuntPol]

Hi Everyone,

I bought a propogator not long ago and itching to try it out I sowed lavender and poached egg plants.  It was knowing that they may fail it being the onset of winter - I just wanted to see how things worked with the propogator.  About half the lavender sprouted (now on south facing window sill for the winter) but none of the poached egg plant so I threw them on a bed outside the back door and forgot about them.

Yesterday my son in law was doing some fence work and came in to tell me he wasn't touching it until I moved the plants as he was not going to get in trouble for anything happening to them.  Imagine my suprise when I found about 6 dozen sprouted pouched egg plant seeds.

Now in order to rescue them should I [a] leave them where they are and hope they survive the winter (its a very wet spot) or pot them up and leave them outside or [c] pot them up and bring them inside.

[ideasguy]

Leave them where they are Annie - they are as hardy as old boots!
They will do much better outside than in pots!

If you dig up a "sod" of them, you can transplant a few elsewhere.

The only difficult think is- you should enter them as Limnanthes douglasii into Ideas Genie and Flower Genie with their Common name as well, of course
Here's a web page for reference and good info:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/gardening/plants/plant_finder/plant_pages/488.shtml

Once you have them, you'll always have them! Personally I love them.
After the flowers die off in mid summer, the foliage dies and forms a brown ugly mat. Put up with it for a few weeks (the good thing is it keeps weeds at bay - clever plants!) then when well died off, gather up whats left. The plants have already dropped their seed - a few weeks later, up comes the next generation. Ive had them flower a second time in one year. They will come back in
 abundance.
Allocate a good size patch for them in a nice sunny spot. Let them "naturalise" there.
I'll dig out a few photos later.

[AuntPol]

Hi,
Phew, thanks for that ...

I was hoping they would survive as they are a favourite plant but I have never had any in my own garden.

There are about 100 of them all growing very close together - literally millimetres apart.

I have taken a look at that page and at the top it says they require full sun.  Where they have ended up is at the edge of a porch that gets no sun and is very wet due to the run off from the porch (I'm waiting for the sun in law to put guttering there so that the run off goes into a water butt).   Should I move them en-masse to a sunny spot or do you think they will still be ok?

Also, would you leave the lavender munstead on the window sill or move those outside?

[ideasguy]

Do a little experiment Annie.
That sounds like a difficult spot for some plants to grow. Leave them where they are and see how they do. I'd be surprised if they don't flower. Ive never seen them huffing here in Ireland, and we don't see a lot of sun, particularly this year!
Move a few clumps to another spot. It will thin them out, and those that are left will expand as they grow and fill the gaps.

Ive never grown Lavender from seed. I have some from cuttings in the cold greenhouse in pots, which I plan to plant out in spring.
Do you have many seedlings? If yes, in the absence of advice from others on the forum, I'd keep a few where you have them now and pot on a few and put them outside (if you don't have a greenhouse) against a wall of your house. Its amazing how many plants will survive with a little warmth like that (Ive had neglected Begonia tubers in summer containers come back next year).

[AuntPol]

Hi,
Again, thanks for the advice ... I will seperate the poached egg plants and move some to a sunny spot and see how they do.

The lavender munstead I have about 200 seedlings 6 weeks old.  The idea is to plant them either side of my daughters path to her front door - she is NOT a gardener and her garden is driving me nuts so I am going to try to plant up her garden with plants she doesn't have to 'mess with' as she calls gardening. 

If anyone has any ideas for plants to put inside a twenty foot square bordered by the lavender which she doesn't have to 'mess with' and will keep down weeds I would greatly appreciate it.

[ideasguy]

One I would suggest is Erigeron Dignity.
http://www.specialperennials.com/Other_Perennials/Plant_List_Erigeron.htm
That or any of the other varieties on that site (except Erigeron karvinskianus) would be perfect.
In my garden they flower early and for ages thereafter. They make a nice clump fairly quickly (in 2-3 years) and they suppress weeds in my garden, and that takes some doing

[AuntPol]

 
Thanks !  Will take a look