Potting up day is an annual event. I grow about 800 - 1000 plants every year. This page covers all things related to raising you own seedlings.

Seed is either purchased from a seed supplier or collected by the volunteers. There are laws regarding the collection of Australian native seed. The two I am aware of are the requirement for a licence and the requirement to collect no more than 10% of the seeds from any one plant. I aim for a variety of genetic material with the seed I collect (don't collect it all from one plant). I also collect seed from as close to the planting site as possible to ensure that I am planting the local subspecies.

I process the seed after collection using a series of sieves to produce a pure a seed as possible. You aim to have no other organic matter or bugs in with your seeds. I then let the seed air out in a warm spot for a while. On a hot dry day I will put the seed into a resealable bag and store it in a cool dry spot.

Some seeds have a hard coat and need pretreatment. This could be scoring the coat or softening the coat using hot and cold water. I have only used the hot and cold water approach.

This is acacia paradoxa (Kangaroo thorn) seed. I use to bowls- one is filled with cold water and the other with boiling water from the kettle. The seed is placed in a kitchen sieve and dropped alternately in the hot then cold water for one minute. This process is performed a total of three times. This softens the hard coating on the seed and results in a higher germination rates.

I try to pot up in early spring. The reason for this is the Adelaide summers are very hot. I want the seedlings to be growing solidly when the very hot weather arrives rather than just emerging from the soil. I water the seedling once per day. The seedlings are grown in full sun all day. Last summer was extremely hot (47 degree Celsius was the hottest day) and I only watered the seedling once a day before going to work in the mornings. I achieved very high success rates using this approach.

Getting the potting mix into the pots and into the trays can be an arduous task if you use a slow technique. I put the pots into the trays and shovel the potting mix over all the pots while they are in the trays. I then level the potting mix with the top of the pots and, using my index and middle fingers, scoop out a little of the potting mix from the top of each pot. This may sound cumbersome, but is in fact a very fast process. I then use the bottom of a pot to tamp down the potting mix in each pot. The seed is added and covered with a light application of potting mix. You should end up with a 1cm gap between the top of the potting mix and the rim of the pot. This will help hold water. Using this technique I can pot up 800 plants in three hours on my own (I did this today!). Filling each pot with soil one pot at a time will take a team of people all day to achieve the same results.

A water the seedlings every day in the morning except when it is raining significantly. This will have to occur every day and you may need to water in winter if there is no rain. It is well worth while to purchase a Dramm water wand. These watering wands produce a high volume low pressure spray- they are the best.. trust me. A Dramm watering wand will cut down you wtareingtime, and when you are watering every day, you will notice the difference.