Chinchilla-Scientia-Forum.de

0. Preface
Chilean plants are an important topic here in this forum. Thus I wish to give some insights to this interesting topic with the following journal. As gardening is another important topic in this forum and it is a vital part of a natural diet with fresh herbs, flowers and grasses and so on, I'll spend time on this topic as well.

In addition this journal is also posted in an english speaking forum:
http://degus-international.org/forums/v ... f=11&t=862

1. Post from Chile

Yesterday was an exciting evening as when I came home I got a letter from Chile. Two weeks ago I ordered some Chilean seeds from http://www.chileflora.com

So I opened the letter:


You can see the seeds...

...and here are all at a glance:


Order and payment
I used Western Union as I never used it before and I felt like to try this out. Well it was quite complicated, but finally it worked. Bottom line was, I had to answer many questions, about purpose of payment, and so on and I couldn't send money in US dollar, so it was converted from Swiss franks to pesos. As Swiss franks are about the same as US dollars I took the same amount in Swiss franks. Then I got a verification code I had to submit.

The seeds
I ordered 12 different species, here the complete list:
Cordia decandra
Kageneckia oblonga
yams species (Dioscorea humifusa)
Leucocoryne purpurea
tarwort species (Flourensia thurifera)
Llagunoa glandulosa
Moscharia pinnatifida
evening prime rose (Oenothera coquimbensis)
succulent wood sorrel (Oxalis carnosa var. carnosa synonymous for Oxalis megalorrhiza)
giant wood sorrel (Oxalis gigantea)
rose wood sorrel (Oxalis rosea)
soap bark tree (Quillaja saponaria)

Most of this plants are eaten by chinchillas, except of Kageneckia oblonga, Oenothera coquimbensis, Oxalis rosea and Quillaja saponaria. The Oenothera I bought because it is an ornamental plant (we have many evening primeroses in the garden, I like this flowers and the degus liked the flowers as well *g*), the other three are common plants occuring in the matorral, the type vegetation where the degus live. Degus use as food Oxalis gigantea and for the other species, I'm not shure. But I'm shure that they would like the Flourensia flowers as it is a plant related to daisy, oxeye, dandelion and so on. Also I assume that they like the other wood sorrel species.

Starting germination of the seeds
Now I intend to sow some seeds, but most of them will be tested next year.
I'll keep you updated...


Abstract in German / Kurzübersetzung:
In diesem Beitrag geht es um die Aufzucht von chilenischen Pflanzen und allgemeinen Gartenthemen. Über die Aufzucht der chilenischen Pflanzen werde ich wie bisher auf Deutsch sehr ausführlich weiterhin berichten. Die aktuelle Diskussion befindet sich hier:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=2110&p=62555#p62555
(Thread Chileflora: Chile-Pflanzen)

3. Sowing Chilean seeds, try 2013

There is an update about my Chilean seeds. It was a painful wait this year, we had such a bad spring that a small scale try in late May or June was quite poor. Originally I wanted to start in April or at least early May, but it was too cold.
Last week I started as we had the previous weeks very warm weather and I felt that I have to use this opportunity.

The result now is quite a mass seed sowing event and I used about 10 different species for this time.

In separate pots I have sown the following species:
- Porlieria chilensis (old seeds from 2011)
- Kageneckia oblonga (a shrub species)
- Moscharia pinnatifida (herb)
- Llagunoa glandulosa (shrub)
- Oxalis carnosa (obsolete name, the valid name is Oxalis megalorrhiza)
- and in another pot I have Leucocoryne purpurea and Oxalis rosea together... as I can identify the wood sorrel, I put it to the Leucocoryne

Then I have some more pots where I put seeds from several species together from the species I mentioned above plus:
- Oxalis gigantea
- Dioscorea humifusa
- a chilean evening primerose (Oenothera coquimbensis)

As I had a look to the pots yesterday evening I could observe the first tender sprouts. Hopefully they will grow well, then I'll take photos.

For a German version see also here / Für eine deutsche Fassung dieses Beitrags siehe auch hier:
viewtopic.php?f=19&t=3869&p=66308#p66308

4. Update: Photos from try 2012
I'll refer here to some older photos. They are from 2012, when I successfully germinated some Acacia caven trees and some other plants, which died off later on:
Chilean seeds project 2012

Espinos (Acacia caven):


All pots:

I used bedding for keeping the moisture in the ground, as it is of light colour and do not warm up as fast as the dark brown window shelf. This was needed as it was quite a hot summer and the temperatures weren't really friendly for my seedlings... as they needed much and often water.