What is the best time of year to plant my seeds indoors?

[BryanW]

I'm a total novice and was wondering what is the best time to plant the following seeds indoors under LED lights?
I currently have red/blue lights, would white LED aid colour & patterning?
All advice welcome

Seeds I have ready for planting are:

• Lithops (Various)
• Conophytum Uviforme
• Titanopsis Hugo Schlechteri
• Tanquana prismatica
• Dactylopsis Digitata
• Faucaria Tigrina
• Lapidaria Margaretae
• Dorotheanthus Bellidiformis /Livingstone daisy (Will eventually go outdoors in containers)

Thank you in advance

[Aiko]

With Dactylopsis you have picked out a species not easy to grow, especially as a novice. Don't be too disappointed if you don't succeed with this one.

You are aware that Conophytum and Dactylopsis (and in less extent Titanopsis) are winter active / short day active succulents? They need a different treatment than those that are active during the spring / summer months. The little book (The new) Growing the mesembs by Ed Storms is very helpful in understanding the difference between winter active and summer active succulents.

[iann]

What is the best time of year to plant my seeds indoors?

Last week. Too late now

[Mafate79]

What is the best time of year to plant my seeds indoors?

Last week. Too late now

Hu hu !

[ragamala]

Lithops seed should give quite high germination rates, so what I might do is get cracking sowing lithops now, and sow more/others after you get some decent germination results and have a bit of confidence in your setup. (If you are a member of the Mesemb Study Group you'll get the chance to get some more good seed with the January (!) journal seed offer, and get more experience.)

As to the growlights I use fluorescents so can't say re LED red/blue of full spectrum white, but if the seedlings are coming out of the indoor set up in the first year it I am guessing won't make much difference in the way you describe.

[BryanW]

What is the best time of year to plant my seeds indoors?

Last week. Too late now

With Dactylopsis you have picked out a species not easy to grow, especially as a novice. Don't be too disappointed if you don't succeed with this one.

You are aware that Conophytum and Dactylopsis (and in less extent Titanopsis) are winter active / short day active succulents? They need a different treatment than those that are active during the spring / summer months. The little book (The new) Growing the mesembs by Ed Storms is very helpful in understanding the difference between winter active and summer active succulents.

I was aware Cono's are winter active, I just don't know when to sow seed, I did read today that the Dactylopsis are a hard plant to grow/keep and that they need salt. I will however take your book recommendation as "a must have" Good job most Mesemb seeds have a good shelf life

Lithops seed should give quite high germination rates, so what I might do is get cracking sowing lithops now, and sow more/others after you get some decent germination results and have a bit of confidence in your setup. (If you are a member of the Mesemb Study Group you'll get the chance to get some more good seed with the January (!) journal seed offer, and get more experience.)

As to the growlights I use fluorescents so can't say re LED red/blue of full spectrum white, but if the seedlings are coming out of the indoor set up in the first year it I am guessing won't make much difference in the way you describe.

I'll start some of the Lithops as soon as I have the grow box in place hopefully within the next week.

Thanks for the advice folks it's much appreciated, as is the humour

[esp]

Further to the comments here, I'd say not to worry about white LEDs, I've used blue / red without issues for a range of cacti and succulents (although not many mesembs).
Also, I'd consider splitting species into 2 batches, especially if you have a decent amount of seed. Often, if you have a problem with your seed germinating and on-growing procedure it shows within a month or so. If you start soon, and only sow half of the seed of some species, you can learn from your mistakes and have another go before the spring has advanced very far.
I'm based in Birmingham too, if you are interested in expanding your collection, I have various nice, small plants I would like to get rid of to make more space! PM me if you are interested.

[BryanW]

Hi esp, I will most certainly only sew small batches of each species. Thank you for the plant offer but unfortunately I'll have to decline due to lack of space. I did intend to keep the collection small and varied but after buying someone else's Lithops collection it has left me very little room.
You could say I was like the proverbial kid in the sweet shop, only trouble is I bought too many sweets
I will give the LEDs a whirl without any white and see how things turn out.

It's becoming apparent that I need to record/log watering patterns, lighting times and temprature for each species/genera, I can feel a new spreadsheet coming on already

[iann]

All the species you list will need quite cool nights, or they may not germinate. It is common for them to be too warm under lights. A south-facing window is often more successful. If you can keep it cool enough, extra light can be useful until there's some real light in a few months time.

They should all germinate easily, some are a little more tricky after that. The Titanopsis and Dactylopsis are winter growers that are tricky in our climate. The Dorotheanthus is a vigorous weed that will etiolate badly in warm dull conditions. They grow well outside if protected from hard frost, the main difficulty is getting them big enough quick enough for a good summer display. Once they start flowering they are doomed, but they look good on the way. The Lithops, Lapidaria, and Tanquana are not difficult but quite slow. The Conophytums you'll have to take care with because it will be very small when it goes dormant for its first summer, but otherwise not hard.

[Aiko]

The Conophytums you'll have to take care with because it will be very small when it goes dormant for its first summer, but otherwise not hard.

Unless when sown in spring, it will keep on growing during its first summer and will not go dormant about one full year later in the next summer. And in the mean time you could treat them during their first summer as any other summer active little seedling.