Seed Starting- Begonias and Pansy Progress

Tonight's seeds. One pack from 2014 and one from 2015. Both pink blooms. I don't know why I picked shanzi  when I bought it. Looking at it on line, I don't even like the way it looks. Well let's see if it germinates.

I always open the disc and don't leave that small hole. The holes in the center help with large seeds but I normally fill this and did to the recommended depth. For my pelleted begonias, the seeds go on top. It's recommended to press lightly into the soil but don't cover. I also spray them to help melt the clay pellet.

The shanzi are tiny green pellets and the dragon wing are the tan colored ones. I had 5 extra spaces so I sowed, one pink geranium. There were several seeds but I dropped them on the floor and that was a done deal as I will never find them. So I sowed 4 geranium black velvet seeds. Normally I don't mix seeds because they have different requirements for germination but they'll all be okay. When the geraniums germinate I'll move them to another container with the others I removed today. I'll show you that next. The tray is covered with the humidity dome and placed on the heat mat. You know it's a slow process for begonias and when they do germinate the are smaller than a piece of thread. You really have to look to see them. If they do like they did in the past it'll be about 3 weeks to 1 month before they germinate. The excitement begins.

That's a saved container from the cheesecake Factory. It's as good as the tray we buy. I have to stop saving things though because they add up. You can never have enough egg cartons. Great for petunias.

The geraniums all except one removed from the ungerminated container. Some of the seedlings seed leaves looked a little yellow and it's too early for that. Maybe the heat mat or not enough nutrients although all the food they need is in their first leaves. You start fertilizing them when the develop their true leaves but tonight I gave them a light spray of fertilizer in the spray bottle. Lets pray.

The remaining geraniums were put these back on the heat mat.

The container worked perfectly.

Pansies. I have 2 trays. I covered some and the ones on top accidently fell there. The uncovered ones are the ones that germinated first. These are beautiful pansies. If I don't get any, it'll be upsetting.

Geraniums and pansies under light without heat now. Since the seeds still aren't germinating well I removed them from the heat but they're covered wih newspaper to block out light to provide the dark they need for germination. Hopefully the warm light also won't be too much heat.

Remaining geraniums and begonias put back on the mat.

Pacifica vinca. Not as many seeds as I'd expected. Hopefully if I get to the nursery this week they'll have some so I can get some started.

I'm going to start lisianthus tomorrow, maybe. These are old seeds, of Cinderella a yellow type. I've never tried these but have done some reading on them. They can be hard to germinate and require certain temperatures. After germination it seems to be about the same process but we'll see.