Master Gardener Training & Snowflakes

My Bestest Bud Kathy and I are taking the Master Gardener Training.  Our name tags actually say "in training."  Todays training was a full day scheduled at Kingwood Center.  Ms. Mona did the first half of the day with Propagation and Chuck Gleaves did the afternoon with Pruning.  It was a cold snowy day.  The kind I wish I was just hanging out at Kingwood taking pictures of the fat fluffy snowflakes instead of being in class.

Here is a  picture of what a snowflake looked like in Kathy's hair.

 

And here is a cluster of snowflakes on a Magnolia Bud

 

 

 

Seed Propagation

 

The following pictures are actually from a facebook post I did of Mona last year transplanting seedlings.  It shows one method of propagation we learned during training that day. 

 





Seeds are started by filling a 4 in. pot with seed starting mix. After wetting the mix thoroughly, seeds are sprinkled evenly in the pot. Watered gently, to get seed to soil contact, seeds will germinate in three to five days with a plastic bag over the pot in a sunny location.



Remove seedlings from the 4” pot by using a pointed stick. Carefully poke down in the soil to allow the seedlings to separate better. Be careful not to break the root.

 

Gently hold the stem of the seedling being careful not to pinch it.

 

Lift gently to remove seeding from small pot.



Transfer seedling to tray by making small hole in soil.

With the stick, gently help the root into the hole.

Move the soil to close the hole and repeat till tray is full.  Then water gently to get good soil contact with root.

 These are pansy seedlings.  They will take two months to mature enough to plant.