Sabal Bermudana sprouts

[JohnAndSancho]

My plan was to check this baggie and ask y'all when I should pot them up, but I guess the answer is uhhh, now. A couple of them have poked holes in the baggie. 

 

I've read these want deep pots - would a gallon jug with the top cut off be adequate for a while? Would 2L bottles be better as it'll be a hair taller? 

How many should I throw in per bottle? 

These sprouted REALLY fast, just threw some sphagnum in a baggie, dropped the seeds in, threw them on the heat mat. 

[Ben G.]

That's cool that they sprouted so quickly for you. My experience with sabals has been much slower. 

I would think that the 2 L containers would better suit your seedlings than the gallon jugs, but at their current size I would just put them in something like paper or plastic cups. I usually don't put them in larger containers until their roots have filled out something smaller like a cup first.

Others can chime in if I am off base there though.

[Las Palmas Norte]

6 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

... How many should I throw in per bottle? ...

That will depend on how long you plan on leaving them in that container and what your eventual plans are for them. If you plan on leaving them as is, the choice is up to you. If you plan on separating them later, untangling without damaging the roots, that could well become a challenge.

[N8ALLRIGHT]

Yessir, Solo cups, split em now, it's going to be easier now than later 

[JohnAndSancho]

Yes yes yes, untangling roots absolutely sucks and usually leads to me killing stuff. There's a mountain of empty smaller soda bottles I can use as planters. 

 

Follow up question, how soon can these start taking sun/full grow light? I've got a bunch of E and NE facing windowsills in the house, and they're all kitten-free areas. Lord these kittens are a handful and there's another batch on the way. 

[Ben G.]

49 minutes ago, JohnAndSancho said:

Yes yes yes, untangling roots absolutely sucks and usually leads to me killing stuff. There's a mountain of empty smaller soda bottles I can use as planters. 

 

Follow up question, how soon can these start taking sun/full grow light? I've got a bunch of E and NE facing windowsills in the house, and they're all kitten-free areas. Lord these kittens are a handful and there's another batch on the way. 

Caveat first; I have never grown bermudana before.

That said, I have grown palmetto, minor, Birmingham, and Mexicana before. All of seemed able to take full sun immediately for me. I never lost any to sun that I can remember. I have lost some to drying out at that seedling stage though.  As seedlings it seems to me, that by the time a sabal shows drought stress they are a gonner. Older sabals with established roots have been quite drought resistant for me.

[JohnAndSancho]

24 minutes ago, Ben OK said:

Caveat first; I have never grown bermudana before.

That said, I have grown palmetto, minor, Birmingham, and Mexicana before. All of seemed able to take full sun immediately for me. I never lost any to sun that I can remember. I have lost some to drying out at that seedling stage though.  As seedlings it seems to me, that by the time a sabal shows drought stress they are a gonner. Older sabals with established roots have been quite drought resistant for me.

I've never grown them either 😂 

[JohnAndSancho]

Those who know, I guess @Sabal King is our sabal expert - should I use a chunky mix or more like garden/potting soil?

[JohnAndSancho]

I ended up with a total of 13 showing green already, 4 more just showing roots, and a handful that didn't pop yet. 

[Sabal King]

On 3/27/2024 at 7:01 PM, JohnAndSancho said:

Those who know, I guess @Sabal King is our sabal expert - should I use a chunky mix or more like garden/potting soil?

Sorry I missed this tag…. They’re not picky… I have grown them in garbage soil, compost, draining dirt and non draining.  They don’t care.

[JohnAndSancho]

On 3/30/2024 at 7:21 PM, Sabal King said:

Sorry I missed this tag…. They’re not picky… I have grown them in garbage soil, compost, draining dirt and non draining.  They don’t care.

It's all good, I'm not getting all notifications right now either. I do have another question for you though - how fast do these guys move as sprouts? I've already seen noticable movement, albeit small. I'm going to move them outside once we stop seeing these 40 degree nights and hope the cats aren't interested in them. 

[OC2Texaspalmlvr]

On 3/23/2024 at 11:39 PM, JohnAndSancho said:

Lord these kittens are a handful and there's another batch on the way.

 

4 hours ago, JohnAndSancho said:

I'm going to move them outside once we stop seeing these 40 degree nights and hope the cats aren't interested in 

You need to start selling some of these kittens for your palm tree slush  fund haha . Sabal won't blink on 40° if they can get some sun during the day ! 

T J 

[Sabal King]

On 4/4/2024 at 2:48 AM, JohnAndSancho said:

It's all good, I'm not getting all notifications right now either. I do have another question for you though - how fast do these guys move as sprouts? I've already seen noticable movement, albeit small. I'm going to move them outside once we stop seeing these 40 degree nights and hope the cats aren't interested in them. 

Sabal bermudana are fast in my experience.  Not only are they quick but they also are much larger when grown side by side palmetto, minor, Louisiana, brazoriensis, etc.  they’ll get big quick!

[Ltapia]

That’s crazy mine been germinating for two months nothing ..

[JohnAndSancho]

Annual update I guess? These are in the bathroom window, doing slightly better than the ones under the grow lights. Nobody's root bound in the Solo cups yet, but when would be the best time to throw them in a community pot? Somebody somewhere on here once used cardboard and plastic as dividers in community pots and god knows there's enough Chewy boxes around here to do that.

 

Or taking it a step further, how big should they be before I plant them out? The Sabal Minor in the edge of the woods looks totally unphased by the 9° temp we saw. Maybe this year I'll make it to the fruits before the deer and birds eat them all. 

I have Mexicana and Palmetto seeds on the heat mats right now.