Just Seed - Flower - Cactus - Living Stone - Lithops Mixed - 20 Seeds

Item arrived promptly & was clearly the item I ordered. Packaged fairly well, with brief sowing instructions. Other vendors in the past, combined seeds with a little fine sand, which makes sowing easier. However, it was OK in the waxed sachet anyway. Bought two packs, 40 seeds 12 days later, 12 have germinated & are clearly the real thing. Following a cheaper purchase from China which turned out to be "naughty Marietta's", I am completely relieved & grateful to the vendors (Just Seed UK) for providing the real thing. Thank you.! Think a few more may still germinate, so pretty good rate. I might not have sowed them as carefully as I should so I am happy with current progress.Photos are May 2021, one year later. More than 12 germinated, but these are the survivors! I find these a challenge to grow. I think i overwater them. Also, my cats tread on them sometimes, which doesn't help!🙂June 2021 Recently bought two more packs and noticed the waxed sachet inside was just folded, not sealed. Consequently several seeds had fallen out into the outer packet. They are so tiny they're easily missed & am now wondering how many I lost like that in previous packs. Recommend using strong magnifying glass when handling/sowing these!May '23 - added last 4 photos. I think the spotty grey one is Terricolor (localis) maybe 'peersii', the 3 orange/red ones I think may be karasmontana, possibly 'lateritia' & the red one possibly 'Top Red'. The large brown one could be hookeri, the medium one could be hallii, maybe C087, 'salicola reticulata'? & the still tiny one Schwantesii maybe. The 4 larger ones flowered last year, at 2 years old, which is quite early.I have tried sowing onto 1 ply kitchen roll over cactus compost but had a lot of trouble with algae which may have inhibited germination and caused seedlings to die off. Didn't have great success with this method. Also I don't transplant for at least a year as the seedlings are so easily squashed & fatally damaged by my clumsy fingers.I now sow into 5cm pots filled with cactus compost, topped with fine horticultural sand (not builder's sand), which is said to deter algae. I pre-soak the pots by standing in water until it rises to the top, then stand them in a tupperware tub tall enough to put the lid on above them. I use a directable table lamp beside me for extra light. I place 2 or 3 sheets of A4 paper under the tub & over my working area. (You can easily see if you have dropped any this way). I take a small piece of paper, say A6 cut into 2 or 3 & fold it down the middle. Place it onto of the other sheet & shake the seeds from the pack onto it, into the crease. Use a very strong magnifier to look at the seeds. Some you can hardly see without this, others are more easily visible. Tap/shake the seeds into the crease when you pick it up. Position the end of the paper over the pot/position you want & gently tap it, to make the seeds roll into the pot. Or you can gently push them with a dry toothpick. Its quite easy to space them apart this way so they don't overcrowd each other later. Then, i mist them using a simple small/cosmetic atomiser, (eg150ml holiday cosmetics size), to help them settle them into the sand/compost & absorb moisture. Then i put the lid on & stand it on an East facing windowsill. I check every 1-3 days at first & mist them again to keep them moist. After germination I gradually remove the lid for longer periods in the day, as the seedlings get larger, to avoid damping off, but also, keep misting & avoid leaving them in direct sun at this stage or they'll fry. They need temperatures of around 21C to germinate so this probably won't work in winter without heated propagator.They're a challenge! It's a learning process, but they're fascinating little things. I love them!

After seeing previous reviews planted contents of sachet which just looked like tiny specks. Over 2 months on just one tiny plant has grown - what a waste of time and money.

After 1 week ,all growing.

Slightly low germination rate, about half germinated. But overall good and as described.

So, having read the reviews I was fully expecting them to be incredibly tiny, however there were definitely not 20 seeds. I got maybe half that if I was being generous, and I checked, they hadn’t escaped out into the packaging, something this small they could be a little more generous with. Which leads me to the next disappointment. Rather than sealing the seeds into a small baggie or something it’s just a fold of grease paper. Which doesn’t make them easy to see or keep track of or contain. Something this small really should have better packaging to ensure that when you get it you have the best chance of actually receiving the seeds.I have today put mine on damp kitchen roll over a bed of damp perlite in a clear enclosed container in my window, and I will update if/when I see any sign of growth.I am not optimistic as the number of seeds was so small and just looks like dust. even a tiny failure percentage will mean a total lack of success. We shall see.Edit: surprisingly about 4 seeds germinated. Unfortunately they didn’t survive being transplanted— lesson learned: don’t use kitchen roll

Good quality seeds

Waste of money...very disappointed

Planted these seeds in amongst some (just) established small Lithops. Had had a good google around to sus the best time of year and settled on early April. Nothing happened even tho' I followed what I hoped was a good water strategy for all plants. The existing plants shrivelled back a bit as expected so watering re-commenced. A few days ago, after a couple of waterings and the existing plants doubling in size (quite a growth spurt!) I found that I now have 9 tiny green blobs (and a selection of weird 'shrooms)! So if you have tried these with no apparent quick success, be patient, mine took 4 months to decide to come up. Fun to watch tho'! A.