Native Plant Newsletter: Germination!
It is a magical time and one full of surprises in the nursery. At last, we get to see whether our winter-long seed treatments have been successful in breaking the seeds’ dormancy, and prompting them to germinate. We have made sure the seeds are sufficiently wet, and are sown in a media that both protects them and allows them access to oxygen. Now they (fingers crossed!) begin to come out of dormancy under specific conditions, namely temperatures typical of spring, and light levels. Once the ideal circumstances are occurring, chemical reactions take place inside the seed that kick start conversion of stored energy into usable energy for the seed and growth begins.