Johnny jump up

Back in 2019 I bought some seeds of a flower called 'Johnny Jump up' or 'Heartsease' (Viola tricolor).  It is one of the wild pansies.  

The flowers are pretty.  They have edible leaves and flowers, the leaves have a bunch of medicinal properties, and are said to self seed so easily that once you plant them they are there forever.  While they are edible, and have various medicinal properties, I wanted them because they look nice and are said to mostly look after themselves. 

I planted some seed, the plants were small and the flowers were rather pretty.  

Johnny jump up flowers

It was too dry that year so I could only water some plants, I decided to stop watering these and figured they should return from seed they dropped.  The summer of 2019-2020 had record breaking heat, it was very dry, there were extreme bushfires across the Eastern side of Australia, and the air was thick with smoke for weeks.  The following year was cooler and wetter, but no Jonny Jump Up plants grew, not a singe one.  

The 2019-2020 summer was dreadful

Many of the annual plants I grew over the summer of 2019-2020 produced seed that never germinated.  The smoke certainly stopped pollinating insects from flying, but I think there is more to it.  Most produced seed, but the seed never germinated.  Many plants that are not insect pollinated also produced seed that never germinated.  

I thought about buying more Johnny jump up seed, but never got around to it.  This year (2024), after not having any of these plants for years, one grew.  

Wild pansy flowers

I thought after such a long time that there must not have been any viable seed in the soil, clearly there was at least one.  

This plant is growing with a lot of competition from neighbouring weeds and things.  I pulled out some of the taller grass so it has sunlight, I gave it a little water, other than that I tried not to intervene.  

You will notice that the two flowers look very different.  This is normal, the parent stock used to do this too.  It has nothing to do with the age of the flowers, the dark one was dark when it first opened, and it stayed darker.  The lighter one was lighter when it opened, and it does not appear to be getting darker as it ages.  

While I will probably try to save a little seed from this plant, I won't do that until it has had a chance to drop some seed first.  I would hate to collect all the seed and inadvertently prevent it from setting up a seed bank in the soil.  

It is getting late in the season, hopefully it has time to set seed and establishes a little population of self seeded plants.  Winter shouldn't kill the plant, even if frosts come early it should survive and be able to flower and set seed in spring.  

I like it when things self seed, and I like it when plants produce self-sustaining populations. 

Super leuco - seed grown pitcher plants

A few years ago, a grower friend sent me some seeds as a surprise (thanks Beauze).  There were some really amazing seeds in there.  I was delighted.  

Among the packets of seeds were seed of a pitcher plant called Sarracenia leucophylla - Super Leuco.  I love the look of S leucophylla, and had always wanted to grow one.  

I was very excited to grow seeds of a plant that was meant to be be bigger and better than regular ones.  So far they have not disappointed me!  

Super Leuco

Another pitcher

I am not good at growing Sarracenia for some reason.  I am growing several other species and I seem to face the same problem with them all. 

Pitcher plants are said to be very easy to grow, and are meant to survive a lot of neglect.  When I grow them from seed they all seem to do well the first year, then subsequent years some thrive while others growing next to them under the same conditions die.  

I don't know what I am doing wrong.  It isn't my climate, there is a guy about 40 minute drive from here with the largest private collection of pitcher plants that I have ever seen.  The climate there is pretty similar to here, so I know they can grow well in this area.  

Some have red veins

I am happy to say some of my super leuco are are getting big and look healthy.  I am told that their autumn pitchers are always the best looking, so far that is proving to be true.  These things look spectacular.  

The seed grown plants are displaying a little genetic diversity, which is a good thing.  They are all lovely, some have green veins, others have more red veins, all are showing good amounts of white and nice shape pitchers.

Pitcher plants are great, once they grow larger they tend to catch a lots of insects.  By 'a lot' I mean hundreds, if not thousands, of insects can be caught in each pitcher, and the plant has several pitchers.  I find sundews catch a lot of the smaller insects on each leaf, and pitcher plants catch a lot of the larger insects, so it is good to have both of these plants catching insects of all sizes.  

I wish I was better at growing pitcher plants, but for now I will be happy that I have a few lovely looking plants that are growing larger each year.  

Arizona snowcap cactus

When I was in high school I bought a small cactus, at the time it had a label that called it something along the lines of 'Snowy'.  It was an Arizona snowcap cactus.  

The Arizona snowcap cactus is a small thimble cactus, Mammillaria vetula.  This is a species of cactus in the subfamily Cactoideae which is endemic to the Mexican states of Hidalgo, Guanajuato, and Querétaro.  

There seems to be a lot of different varieties of this species in the ornamental trade.  Presumably M ventula either has a lot of genetic diversity, or it hybridises easily with other species.  

Arizona Snowcap cactus

The Arizona snowcap cactus is a small, round, green cactus with bright white spines.  This cute little cactus has tufts of dense white spines that are not very pokey, making it a good one for kids to grow.  The one I had years ago looked great, divided often, and flowered each year.  I really liked that cactus.

After I moved out of home after completing high school I lost all my plants, including this cactus.  Since then I have looked for another.  They are not overly uncommon, but they are expensive for what they are.  Every time I see them for sale I am not willing to pay the price, so I keep waiting.  

Cactus offset planted and presumably growing

Late December (28/12/2023) I got a small, pea sized offset from the Arizona snowcap cactus.  Originally I worried that it was too small and may not be viable.  I let it form callus for a few days, then planted it into a small pot.  

Since then it hasn't done much of anything.  I think it has grown roots, and the above ground part still looks much the same.  

Had it not grown roots, the above ground part would be looking shriveled or even started yellowing by now.  The fact it looks the basically the same after several months indicates it is probably alive and growing.  

The soil I have it in is not great for cacti.  I regret using normal potting mix, it would have been better to mix in some perlite or gravel or something, but I didn't so I will need to be more careful growing this.

Heading into winter with such a tiny plant in soil like this I may have trouble giving it enough water to survive but not so much that it rots.  I am growing this on the kitchen windowsill, it may not get enough sunlight there, but it will be somewhat protected from the cold.

Hopefully it survives the coming winter and is ready to grow larger once spring arrives.  I would like this to grow larger (and produce a few offsets) before I consider dividing it.  

Liverworts

I like liverworts, they are interesting little plants.  They don't have a significant economic importance, and they are small, so mostly they go unnoticed.  Even though they are small, they have an interesting lifecycle, and there is something about them that I like the look of.  

Thallose liverworts gametophyte with gemmae cups

When I was a child liverworts used to grow in the valley near the river.  They didn't thrive, but it was the only place I had ever seen them and I was intrigued.  I took one to school in a jar and asked my teacher what it was, they said it was fungus or moss, and made me throw it out.  

Needless to say, my teacher was wrong.  When I went to university I studied a lot of botany, and I learned a lot about liverworts.  Liverworts are not fungus, and they are not moss.

A liverwort is a small flowerless, spore-producing plant.  Its spores are produced in little capsules.  They also produce gemmae, which are like tiny cuttings which it uses to make little clones itself.  What fun.  

According to the National Botanical Garden, the English word "wort" means "small plant".  This is used in names such as Pennywort and Bladderwort.  The term liverwort originated from early herbalists who thought that one of the liverworts had some resemblance to a liver - and some use as medicine for liver ailments.  Hence the word liverwort is a "liver-like small plant".  

Liverworts multiplying

For a few years I grew some liverworts in a tiny terrarium that I made.  It was a glass teacup that had some sphagnum moss, a few sundews, a tiny fern, and some liverworts.  This looked great, it lasted a few years until I eventually gave it away.  In hind sight, the fern would have eventually grown too large, but at the time it looked incredible.  

A few years ago I noticed a liverwort growing in my lawn.  I hadn't seen any liverworts in some time.  I carefully cut it in half and dug up one half, put it in a cup of soil, and intended to look after it.  I did not look after it well, it dried out and died.  Strangely, I still feel bad about that.  

I cut it in half and left half where it was.  When I would water the vegetable garden I would also water the other half of the liverwort in the lawn.  Needless to say, the part I did not dig up multiplied nicely.  

These are thallose liverworts, while I am far from being an expert I believe it to be a crescent-cup liverwort (Lunularia cruciata).  This is a common liverwort species, its native range is unclear as it is now found many places across the globe.  

Since finding them I kept watering the liverworts, and they have kept multiplying.  I largely try to remove competition from vascular plants, and the liverworts thank me by expanding more.  

Liverworts, moss, and chickweed

These liverworts are somewhat frost sensitive.  That being said, these are growing outside.  They are in a frost shadow, they do get a little frost but nothing too harsh.

Sooner or later something will happen and this patch will die.  Perhaps a drought, perhaps they will be over run with grass, perhaps it will be a mystery and they will be gone for no apparent reason.  I will miss them when that happens.  Between now and then I am going to enjoy them.  

I recently put one in a pot of soil, hopefully this grows well and can start a new population when I do eventually lose my little liverwort patch.  Perhaps I should make a terrarium in a jar or something and include a liverwort.  Liverworts look so nice in terrariums, and unlike most plants they survive well in terrariums long term and don't grow too large.  

Liverworts do their thing in nature while often going unnoticed.  They also look incredible in terrariums.  They are very useful in science classes when teaching about botany and gemmae and flowerless plants etc.  Very few places sell liverworts online other than a few terrarium supply shops, and a few science supplies companies.

I sell perennial vegetables, heirloom vegetable seeds, and a few other things through my for sale page.  At this stage I don't sell liverworts.   

Asparagus seed germination

I wrote in an earlier post about saving asparagus seed from my purple asparagus plants.  It was a bit of work, but the result was worth the effort.  

I got a decen number of seed, then got my daughter to count out 100 seeds, I soaked them, then planted them, and recorded the results.  

Planting one hundred seeds makes estimating the germination percentage both easy and reasonably reliable.  I don't like estimating percentage of germination with the number of seed any lower than this if possible, and higher numbers are more work to count.  

Asparagus seedlings - all pretty similar at this stage

I dried the seed.  Then prior to planting I soaked seed overnight.  You don't need to soak asparagus seed, but it makes me feel like I am helping so I sometimes soak it.  I have read mixed things about cold wet stratification of asparagus seed, I have never tried that and it appears that it is not needed in fresh seed.

100 asparagus seeds soaked   
Seeds planted        06/02/2024     Day 0
Germinated           18/02/2024     Day 12
Percent germinated: 98% - the remaining two seeds may still germinate later

Two weeks to germinate isn't bad.  Asparagus seed can take a bit longer to germinate if conditions aren't right, they can also germinate a little faster if they are on a heat mat.  

I grew seeds from a purple asparagus that was open pollinated.  The seedlings all look similar, which indicates there may not be too much genetic variation, and hopefully it has not crossed with a green variety.  

I didn't pay too much attention to the colour of the first spears, and will have to separate these and grow them out to see how many are purple.  Any green ones will have 50% purple genetics, so should still be much sweeter than most green varieties.  Any that have crossed should also display hybrid vigour and be more productive.  It is exciting to see what comes of this lot.  

Asparagus germination test

I wrote earlier that from bought seed I usually get low germination, and I have always thought that was due to the age of the seed.  Given that my fresh seed had such high germination I think this is likely the case.  

Asparagus seedlings divided 

Now I know I can save seed from my purple asparagus.  If many are crossed with green, I can take extra precautions next year to ensure only purple asparagus is able to pollinate my female purple asparagus plants.  

Hopefully this means I will no longer have to buy expensive purple asparagus seed and can grow my own.

Asparagus seed saving

I have grown asparagus (Asparagus officinalis) from seed many times.  Growing from sed is fiddly and takes time.  It takes a few years to get a crop when grown from seed, which means that many people prefer to buy year old crowns instead.  

Many heirloom asparagus varieties have a superior flavour and texture, but other than a few varieties nowhere sells plants.  I buy seed of these harder to find heirloom varieties from respected companies, grow them out for a year or two, and sell the dormant crowns.  I don't tend to save seed myself because I cannot ensure pure varieties.  

On average from bought seed I most often tend to get about 30% germination.  Occasionally I get 100% germination, other times I tend to see 10% or frustratingly sometimes even zero percent germination.  I believe this is probably due to the age of the seed, with poor germination from older seed.  

Asparagus seed saving

Asparagus plants are dioecious, individual plants are either male, or they are female.  Unless you pay for some form of genetic testing, you can't tell them apart until they flower.  

Large farms only grow male plants.  If they have any female plants, these will drop seeds, and the seedlings eventually choke the beds making all the plants unprofitable.  

Sadly, home gardeners have been told to remove female plants (due to seedlings) for so long that they think female plants are inferior.  This is not true.  Female asparagus plants are proven to produce longer, fatter, more tender spears.  Home growers probably prefer female plants as they produce longer, fatter, more succulent spears, and many home gardeners can devote the time needed to either remove berries or remove seedlings.  

Asparagus seedlings germinating

Many purple asparagus plants are tetraploid, and many green asparagus varieties are diploid.  I wonder if I could cross them to produce seedless triploids.  If this was the case there would be no reason not to grow female asparagus plants.  I think crossing them may be a project for a future year, or a project for someone else to try.  

Purple asparagus is sweeter than green, and when forced to be white it is even sweeter.  In this country, most of the purple asparagus is from unnamed varieties.  I was buying seed from purple asparagus and growing it out to sell crowns.  Seed is expensive, which meant my plants were expensive.  Buying seed also meant that if the company sells out, or if they send me old seed with low/no germination, I could not grow and sell any plants.  

The past few years I have been unable to buy any purple asparagus seed.  I have a few purple asparagus plants, some are male, others are female.  I decided to allow them to flower, save seed, grow some, and see if the seedings are purple.  If they produce purple seedlings then I can save my own purple asparagus seed.  

Purple asparagus spears

As there are not many pages on the internet explaining how to save asparagus seed I thought I would write a post about how I did this.  

I am only saving seed from purple asparagus because it is not a named variety.  I am not certain that any of the green named varieties will come true from seed.  For this reason any plants I sell from named varieties will be grown from seed bought from reputable companies, and not from seed I saved myself.  

To get seed you need mature asparagus plants.  As mentioned, asparagus plants are either male or female.  You need both in order to get seed, or at the very least you need a female plant and a male nearby that can pollinate it.  

Purple asparagus spear next to green for comparison

Asparagus sends up their spears, they fern out and look nice and fluffy, if the plant is old enough and healthy enough it will flower.  Flowers are uninteresting and small, many insects (and possibly wind) will gladly pollinate them.  

Not long after the flowers die off the female plants will produce little red berries.  Please don't eat these, they are mildly toxic.  I am told that birds can eat them with no ill effects.  The berries turn red and look nice.  

Asparagus berries

asparagus berries

They produce a lot of seed

Once the majority of the berries are ripe like in the photos above, I pick them off the plant.  I hadn't realised before, but some asparagus is slightly thorny after it ferns out, so picking berries can be painful and time consuming.  

The asparagus plants produce tremendous numbers of berries.  I pulled them into a container.  I had planned to collect all of the berries, but there were so many I only collected them from one or two fronds.  

You may notice in the photo that there are a lot of little insects and spiders and things in among the chaff.  I grow everything organically, meaning this is unavoidable.  I left the container for an hour or so while I did something else, this gave time for the tiny critters to climb out and go somewhere else.  

Asparagus produces a lot of seed

Once I had the asparagus berries I could squish a few berries, get their seeds, and I would be good to go.  But what do you do when you have heaps of berries?  

Each berry contains between one and six seeds.  There were many hundreds of berries in my container.  I could not squish each berry and carefully remove the seeds.  

I went through and removed any berries that didn't look ripe.  Anything green was thrown away.  Perhaps the seed would be fine and the seeds would still germinate, but I had enough that I didn't need to risk it.  

I added some water to the container, got a potato masher, and squashed everything.  It made a mess, it smelled bitter (yes, you can smell bitter, if you collect asparagus seed you will know what I mean), most of the fruit pulp floated, while most of the seeds sank.  This made life easier.

Asparagus berries

Once I had enough of mashing asparagus berries, I carefully tipped off  most of the pulp.  Then I added more water, tipped off the pulp.  I did this a few times to remove most of the pulp while retaining most of the seeds.

One thing I was not ready for was that seeds would float after they touched air.  If the seeds touched the air they would get a little bubble, and this would make them float.  If I stirred the mix, the seeds would lose their little bubble, and they would sink.  Some seeds always float, presumably they are not good seeds and they were also tipped off.  

After I tipped off as much water as I could, as well as pouring off the pulp and floating seeds, and left the remaining seeds to dry in the shade for a few days.

asparagus seeds with a little pulp

Asparagus seeds, leave to dry a few days

Once the seeds were dry I put them in a little bag.  There is still a little chaff in there, but that won't affect germination.  

As you can see, I have a lot of asparagus seeds.  I could have collected a lot more seed, but the effort involved is not worth it as the seed loses viability relatively quickly.  This little bag of seeds is now in the fridge.  

From here I had a lot of asparagus seed to plant.  I was curious to see what percentage germinated, and to see if fresh seeds did germinate easily without any stratification or other treatment.

To test the germination rate I got my daughter to count out 100 seeds.  I planted them into a pot of soil and recorded the results.  Not surprisingly, with fresh seed the germination percentage was really high.  No cold stratification was needed, fresh seeds were simple and quick to germinate. 

I really should stop this blog post as it is getting a little long, I will try to write another post on the results of the seed grow out.  

If you are interested in buying year old dormant crowns over winter, or buying some purple asparagus seed, I may list it on my for sale blog page.