About 5-6 days ago, a day before a Dove pair kicked Junior out of the nest, I laid a hand full of Saguaro seeds under their nest, about 10 feet up. I did that because Mom was walking around my saw and staying about 4-5 feet from me. I figured she was trying to let Junior know I was harmless. The next day, the nest was empty and Junior was over on top of my cactus cage. It stayed there for 2 days before disappearing, plus Mom and Pop were gone also, so figured Jr. finally got brave and took flight.
I did everything to keep from destroying that handful of seeds, so got my small 2"x 2' x 2' planter? box thing I made years ago. Filled it with dirt and got a 4" putty knife and scraped up the seeds, spread them on the dry dirt. I then put it inside the cage, got a hose and sprinkled water on the planter?. I grabbed an old sheet to cover it to keep moisture in the dirt also keeping the seeds moist. As usual, I overdid the watering, and a lot of seeds washed out of the planter.
Yesterday, I noticed several of the seeds were covered with a white fuzzy stuff, which are the roots forming after the seed starts turning itself into a plant. They were being depressed by the sheet, so removed the sheet, got my sifter which is about 2" larger than the planter. I hunted for a towel or something of that thickness that would preserve moisture better than that sheet. Found an old towel type material robe that I used for wrapping an exposed faucet during our winters. I laid it over the sifter and watered the planter and called it a day.
Today, I checked the planter and discovered I flooded the planter again and pretty much any seed in the middle floated to the outer edge of the planter. That's not good, but man, they germinated and there is over 2-3 hundred that will probably from into Saguaros. The best thing is, there's still at least another 5 hundred seeds that haven't germinated yet.
The seeds were harvested in 2008. I really did have my doubts as to whether I'd get any results. Now, my problem is I've got a real job in about 2 weeks separating those clusters of baby cacti. If I don't lose very many, there should be nearly 5-6 hundred in the planter. The seeds that washed out are on the ground and getting water from my over watering. It will be interesting.
The cactus cage was built to keep the Javelina from eating my Queen of the Night Blooming Cereus. Blooming on those is one night only, and it's about 2 weeks away.
Pictures tomorrow of the Saguaros as they will show up better than today.
@trc65, how are yours doing?............... Jerry (in Tucson)
This was taken this morning. Same area but short by about 3 inches from the corner in the above picture.
