No pretreatment required. lightly cover the seed soil temp 68-72F & takes 10-14 days to germinate & transplant after 6 weeks... & produces a plant in a 4" pot in 24 weeks (flowering).

Kathygold
I have tried these from seed numerous, times and failed.I have no idea what I do wrong.If you get yours to germinate,could you please tell me how you did it as I am lost at these.

Georgez
You make it sound so easy,I have tied that but still nothing.I am starting to wonder if I am collecting the right part as seed.

Everything I have read on Gerber Daisy in seed catalogues ect say that germination is erratic and requires experience. My take therefore is that they are probably little buggers to deal with so don't feel too bad and keep working on it.

I'll be winter sowing some Gerbera daisy seeds in the next few weeks because they're hardy here. Will let you know how the germination goes--

The seeds are rather lovely. They have silky little tassels at one end.

Gerbers were my dad's specialty. The seeds have fuzz on one end. However, you must look for the few fat, fertile ones. Most will be thin and infertile, and many flowers don't produce any fertile seeds. Once you see one, you'll know it. Punch a hole in your soil with a toothpick, then slip in the seed vertically with the fuzz on top of the soil line. Snug the soil around the seed. Good luck! They are beautiful!

I just tossed mine, they were doing nothing but annoying me. Now that I have read libbye's post, I don't think I had fertile seeds. They were pretty skinny!

I bought a gerber daisy and want to bring it in side for the winter and hope to plant it next yr. I also want to save the seeds. I took wilted flower off the stem when the leaves dropped and separated the insides. I have some fluffy stuff and some small long tan colored sticks which is the seed? also can i just put all this in a pot and hope i have seeds and separated the seedlings as they come up

I am thinking about trying to get Gerber Daisy plugs to finish out. Does anyone know how long they take before you can cut the flowers. I need a lot of cutting flowers by the 9th of March.

I haven't had much luck with Gerberas so far, but I haven't tried all that hard. From what I've read, they don't produce much in terms of viable seed (kinda like stevias), and have to be sown super-fresh, as in within a few weeks of collecting, if possible. If you did it right, they should germinate within 14 days, and if you see nothing after 30 days (or if you see no more sprouting after 30 days), that's pretty much all you're going to get. They seem to be very well known to be quite a pain to start from seed if you aren't used to germinating them.

I Tried several Sellers On The Internet ebay etc. Most seeds purchased were tiny infertile & very few come up. Then I Purchased some seed from sunrise seeds & got about 80% germation. I used peat pellets and a plastic dome Kept them warm with LOTS of Light. Some now 28 days old and almost ready to transplant.We Grew them Before but never with this kind of success. Pictures are posted,

Gerberas like to be kept warm especially when they are little. They need high temps and high humidity to germinate.
Plugs will take a variable amount of time to finish, depending mostly on your temps and the light intensity. More of each is better. Ideal temps and light you might have some to cut by March 9th. But I'd want a back up plan!
Park seeds is a good place to get seed.

Nice and fertile Gerberas seeds are measured in Inches and CMs:

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Hi Everyone, I'm brand new Garden Web and really appreciate the information you all have shared on Gerber Daisys. Someone mentioned they were "Winter Sowing" - I live in North Texas [zone 8a]. Would that [winter sowing] be my best bet to start Gerbers from seed? Or should I just do it indoors? I want to fill an entire outdoor bed with them and it's too expensive to do from sets. If I cover them with mulch over the winter they always come back, so if I can just get them established, I'm good to go. :-) Mine will even bloom in the winter if it's particularly mild that year (but of course we never know what our winters will be like in Texas - very unpredictable). Thanks for any additional suggestions on starting from seed.

I have some beautiful butter yellow Gerbers that I planted along my walk this year. I didn't think I could grow them from the seed, though i don't know why I thought that. So anyway, questions... if they do germinate and grow, are they true to the original plant's color? In southeastern Mass. zone 6b, do you think I could wintersow or grow in a coldframe?
Thanks for any help/answers

I've had good germination luck starting bought seed (from Stokes and Parks). I did start them in the house early but didn't do anything special, just plunked them into some seed starting mix or light potting soil. Then put in a bright window with lots of indirect light until it was warm enough in the greenhouse.

Our summers are pretty short here so I overwinter them in the house as house plants so I don't have small starts every year. It is not uncommon for all the leaves to die back (or I cut them all off when I bring them in), sometimes even twice through the winter. By spring I usually have some very lush green plants ready to go outside.

I have found they generally do best if they get plenty of water (daily).

I have not attempted to collect seeds, but I'm thinking I might have to try that out.

I collected the seeds from some store bought cut flowers my husband gave me for Valentines day this year. Out of 20 flowers, I got roughly 30 or 40 fertile-looking seeds. I did nothing special to them, but planted them indoors a little less than 2 weeks ago (a few days after I gathered them off the flowers once the flowers were dying). So far, I have about 8 that have started to grow. Since I had no hope of them germinating (because it seems like from this thread they are not all that easy to start sometimes) I am quite happy with this result.

Gerber Daisies started from seed are sensitive to humidity change. You should sow them in covered trays and then when several true leaves have formed begin to acclimate them by taking the lid off for for a short time at first and incrementally increasing the amount of time the lid is off.

* Posted by tastefullyjulie zone 6 (My Page) on
Thu, Mar 2, 06 at 10:10

I just tossed mine, they were doing nothing but annoying me. Now that I have read libbye's post, I don't think I had fertile seeds. They were pretty skinny!

When you toss them I hope it was into your garden. A few years back before gardenweb I tossed my Amaryllis seeds into our flower bed and a couple years later I had some help getting the weeds out of my flower bed because I had a leg removed and wasn't able to garden for quite a while. I gave a few plants and bulbs away. Later I remembered I only had one Amaryllis bulb so where did the few I gave them come from? Plus I ended up with three more, so when throwing away seeds I always make sure they are thrown away into my flower beds.
Paul

Seeded gerber daisy in some old cupcake pans 2 weeks ago. I now have 6 plants coming up. I never tried to seed them. Let's see where it will go.

I just started some gerbera from seed also. They sprouted in about 3 days. I'm excited to see what colors the blooms will be.

We started several seeds in our greenhouse and used a heated growing pad. We have had good success . Yesterday I transplanted several of the larger plants yesterday and was quite surprised at the lack of roots. Is this common?

Does anyone know where to get the "Novelty" Gerber Daisy seeds or plants? I've been trying to find the regular colors on the internet and can only find the unusual novelty combos in cut flowers...

I harvested seed from wilted flowers on a plant I bought at Home Depot. Just laid the old flowers on the windowsill until dried sufficiently and pulled the seeds right out. They didn't look very fat, but I thought I'd see what would happen. I now have about 15 small plants with several sets of leaves. I keep them under grow lights about 16 hours per day and water regularly. They DO seem to be slow growers... have repotted several of them and does not seem to make a big different in growth rate... Still a lot of fun!

I am trying to grow Gerber Daisies from Seed. Once germinated, a couple have developed two true eaves right away, while the others have deveoped one leaf that is maturing? Is this a commin thing with gerber daisies? Am I doing sothing wrong? They are getting 18 hours uner the grow light, and about 3 inches from the light.

Thank You

Ironside

waiting on the true leaves as I write this, happy to answer your question in a short bit:)

ironside and naturemitch wondering on an update for these? going home to go thru my seeds collected in sept 2011. goin to try an sew them?? Please update with ur progress! Thanks!

Here are a couple of pictures taken along the way. These were sown on 2-26-12.

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This was taken on March 31st.

The photo below was taken on April 20th.

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Ready to transplant plug into a 3" pot on 4-20-12.
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The plants are very slow to grow. Finally seeing some good growth on them after the leaves have gotten a little larger. I first thought I had sowed these too late, but now watching them take off, I would once again sow around the end of Feb. The variety of Gerbera is Mega Revolution purchased from Geoseed.

Hi Naturemitch,
I am growing the Jamesonii mix of Gerber Daisies. I am giving them 18 hours a day of light uner my grow lights. Is that too long of a day? How many hours are you giving yours. This is my first time growing them. Thank You

Ironside

Ironside-

Mine are getting about 16 hours of light. I don't believe that 18 is a bad thing, but think you could get by with a bit less light and save the energy bill:)

Here is a shot of them on 4-28:

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they're in 3" pots.

Instead of sorting the seeds for a nice large one, why not stick the whole dead headed flower in the soil and see what happens. That would save time. Then just spot them to select the strongest plants to transplant.

I do that with pulsatillas - works fine.

Hey gerbera only germinate upright (pointy end up) so if u use Rockwood plugs or the paper towel method for germination you should get 90%. The seeds are really expensive so they are worth the $ for plugs