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Fortunately for impatient gardeners, many of the showiest annual flowers can start quickly and easily from seed. Sunflowers and cosmos, for example, generally pop up within 3 or 4 days of sowing. However, some perennials, trees, and tropical plants have seeds that require long periods of stratification to sprout. If you are wondering how to germinate seeds of that sort, keep in mind the following villainous-sounding tricks I try to achieve faster results when starting seeds indoors.
I dump seeds in hot water.
Soaking speeds up germination for a wide variety of seeds, whether you are starting the seeds indoors or outside. How long to soak and how hot to make the water can vary depending on the plants I am starting. In his book Seed Germination Theory and Practice, Norman Deno often recommends several days of soaking for seeds that are enclosed in fruit pulp, such as those of asparagus. That helps wash away the pulp and the germination inhibitors often present in it. Overnight soaking can loosen the tissue paper-like husk on some seeds such as coffee beans so you can strip it off easily and allow the seeds to absorb water.
I’ve also poured boiling water over hard-case seeds, such as canna seeds, allowing them to soak in the cooling water overnight before planting them, which can soften the seed coat and cause them to sprout within 5 days. I had heard about professor Roger Koide discovering that flowering maple seeds germinated more quickly if soaked in 140 degree Fahrenheit water before they were sown, so I’ve tried that trick on closely related pavonia too. I also have tried it on the small, kidney-shaped seeds of nonhardy hibiscus plants. All of these can germinate in 2 or 3 days after such a hot bath.
When using boiling or hot water for plant propagation, I usually place the seeds in Styrofoam cups on which I can easily write their identities. To soak seeds in room temperature water overnight, as is sufficient to cut the germination time for morning glories in half, I simply add water to one of my small plastic ziplock bags used envelopes for saved seeds.
I stab or rough the seeds up.
The purpose of puncturing hard-shelled seeds (a process called scarification) is to make a hole through their coat to break their dormancy and allow water to enter. (Seeds coated with fluff sometimes benefit from this treatment too, since the fluff repels water.) Sometimes, I can get away with just sanding glossy seeds, wearing away their shiny outer coat enough to reach the matte inner coat. For larger seeds I use an emery board. I place small seeds in an empty garlic or baby food jar lined with sandpaper, with its rough side facing in, and shake the jar until the seeds look scuffed.
If the seed company’s instructions call for nicking the seeds instead, I usually hold a seed between needle nose pliers while I cut a small piece out of its coat with the tip of a utility knife. Toenail clippers sometimes will work for snipping too. Having read recently that citrus seeds will sprout more rapidly if soaked overnight and then peeled to extract their kernels, I used clippers to nip off the point on one end of each seed to make peeling easier.
I throw acid at seeds.
This sounds scarier than it is; I use gibberellic acid (GA3), a plant hormone that frequently improves or speeds up germination. I use it only for seeds that I suspect aren’t going to sprout without it, since it occasionally causes weak and elongated seedlings. I’ve found GA3 to work very well for fuchsia seeds. It also can speed up the sweet violet seed germination as well as helping a variety of other challenging species that I might receive as free seeds.
I generally dissolve 100 milligrams of the white powder in slightly less than 1 cup of water to make a 500 parts per million (ppm) solution, mixing it up a day or two before I need it since the powder can take a while to dissolve in water. I then soak the seeds in water overnight before planting them.
I leave seeds out in the cold.
For seeds for which I’ve found no shortcuts, I generally make things easier for myself by stratifying them inside bagged damp paper towels, which I can move easily from a box in the refrigerator to warmer conditions once their “winter” is over. However, some seeds, such as iris, seem to require oscillating outdoor temperatures to sprout.
Since the obvious solution of sowing them outdoors in autumn can lead to them getting eaten by rodents or washed away by spring rains, I often plant mine in a container and place them inside a lidded transparent ice cream bucket on my front porch. That works well enough during most winters, though I’m still waiting to see whether this year’s seeds survived the past winter’s sub-zero temperatures.
