Wednesday, March 27, 2013

Transplanting the Sprout

The little rose seedling from my last post was getting too long too fast, as if it was struggling to reach the light, so this morning I lifted it from the seed tray and transplanted it into its own little pot.

 
 
Necessity is the mother of invention, as they say.  I needed a tool that was small enough to lift the seedling from its small cell, but large enough to keep and hold an adequate ball of soil to protect the seedling's tender root.  A silver pickle fork looked like it would be the perfect tool for the job ...

 
 
... and it was!   Using the fork, I carefully lifted the seedling out of the corner of the cell, and it came out perfectly!  (There is another seed in this cell, so I had to lift just the seedling and not disturb the rest of the cell.)

 

 
 
Downstairs in my basement workshop, I put a small amount of potting mix into a bowl, added some water, and stirred it up (using the pickle fork for this, too)  ...

 
 
... filled a 3-inch pot with the mix, and hollowed out a hole about the size of the little seedling's root ball ...

 
 
... and used the fork to gently place the seedling into the hole.  I used the tip my finger to firm the mix lightly around the rootball, and then gently watered the pot to settle the seedling into its new home.

 
 
Now the pot is under the grow light, keeping company with some of my rose cuttings from the fall.  

 
 
More news on this as leaves form and especially (fingers crossed) when/if we get a bud and a flower.

10 comments:

  1. GREAT tutorial- that is one of the hardest tasks to me- that transplanting- xo Diana

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  2. That's a very high tech gardening tool you have there! The rose was born with a silver fork! ;)

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  3. Grow well little seedling! Love your ingenuity on gardening tools too, lol!

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  4. You take gracious living to new heights, Connie.

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  5. There really is something so tender about a little seedling.

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  6. A silver pickle fork! Who would have thought of using that as a garden tool! A very delicate operation. Good luck to it!

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  7. What an ingenius use for a pickle fork! I've got to challenge myself to find unorthodox tools for these sorts of purposes.

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  8. Good luck on your little sprouts. Hope he gets many more siblings. It really will be a pretty rose one day.

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  9. That's exactly how my seedpods look like - all empty except for one little seedling. What do you do to prevent damping off? I lose a lot of mine to that....

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