Bulletin - Summer 1979 - North American Rock Garden Society

guide and do not discard any seeds,only what is obviously chaff, eventhough only a few appear good. I alwaysshoot for the works and assumethat I might have missed some. If theseeds appear really good, I will sowmaybe twelve in a four and a halfinch pot, but if it looks very poorand I can see only a few seeds withthe embryos plainly visible, I will sowsufficiently thickly that they are perhapseven touching each other. I then coverthe seeds with about one-eighth inchof medium over which I place a layerof siftings from three-eighths inch traprock, i.e., one-fourth inch or less. Justa single layer of trap rock pieces willsuffice. It will help keep the moss out.I then water the seeds in well fromthe top.When to sow? Frankly, I don't thinkthat it matters. The books all say tosow in early spring but I have sownin the fall, and in the winter (January,February). As soon as the seed is sownI put the pots out in the cold framewhere they get frozen solid. In mostcases seedlings will appear in the springalthough I have had them skip a wholeyear and come up the following year.I have also sown seed in April, inwhich case, they sometimes germinatealmost immediately, but sometimes theywait. I want to stress the importanceof not becoming over-anxious and pitchingthem out if they don't germinatequickly; as with all good alpines, waitthree years.For the first year or so after germination,I keep my seedlings in thecold frame, which I shade during thesummer with snow fencing so thatthe pots receive a thin moving shade.I never allow seedlings to flower inthe seed pots, however. Bearing in mindthat they are in smallish pots, I keepa special eye on them during theirsecond to third spring post-germination.Once the plants start putting on somestem growth I plant the whole potfulout as a clump, placing them slightlylower than the soil level and then workingsoil in around the stems to bringit up to soil level. I leave them likethis until the first flowers appear.Usually one or two will flower beforethe others in the third to fourth years.As soon as the flowers are faded,I dig the clump up and separate theplants out. Care must be taken in diggingbecause Nomocharis bulbs tendto get down deep like those of Erythroniums,so you must dig well downto get the spade under them, or youwill leave the bulb behind and causeyourself much annoyance. I like toreplant immediately. 1 separate out thebulbs and I dig holes eighteen inchesacross and nine to twelve inches deepwith the soil at the bottom of thehole well forked over. I then plantsix to nine bulbs in the hole, workingthe soil in around them carefully asI go. Hold the stem and plant themas you would a tree sapling. Take carethat the plants are as deep or evenslightly deeper in the soil than theywere before. They can and will adjustthemselves within reason. I always treadmy plants in after planting, treatingthem more like saplings than bulbs.As to where to plant them? I canonly speak for my garden. I have grownNomocharis in two very different gardens.Though their planting site in bothgardens was well drained, in my formergarden it was much damper than inmy present garden. Also, in the formergarden they were planted on the easternside of Pinus strobus, but the treeswere quite small and dense (twelve toeighteen feet); at present m yNomocharis are growing under a largePinus strobus, mostly on the north andeastern sides, and on a north slope.They have a somewhat thinner shade121