Your seedlings are all doing so well. I haven't had much luck with mine. I got a bunch of viorna, crispa, glaucophylla, and pitcheri seeds this fall. I started them in baggies in a moist seed starting mix(I couldn't find any small bags of vermiculite)at room temperature. After 3 months I had nothing. I put them in the frig and they have been in there about 1 month. How long do you think I should leave them in? Any suggestions as to how to get those seeds to germinate? Karen

Karen, I started some of the ones you mentioned (viorna and glaucophylla in baggies in vermiculite) and I still have no germinations on those either. I have even dumped the mixture out and then peeled the seed coats off to insure that I had good seeds and then put the seeds minus their coats back in the bag and still nothing yet. I sent some of these very same seeds including crispa and pitcheri to Helen and she has already had germinations on all of them I believe and she does nothing special. I am beginning to think that those in colder zones just get quicker germinations. I have also heard that not quite brown seeds seem to germinate much quicker than totally brown ones so am going to try germinating some this year when the seeds have turned a slight golden color instead of letting them ripen and completely dry out.

I think it is Deano that likes alternating warm and cold periods to get the seeds to germinate. I don't have any references to his work so I don't know exactly how long the periods need to be. If I still don't have any germinations on these in a month or so I am going to put the baggies back in the frig for another month and then bring them back out to room temp to see if that helps. Sorry I can't be of more help than that. Patience seems to not only be the word for having clematis mature but also germinate.

OK, patience it is. I will just keep checking on them and hopefully they will germinate. I winter sowed some viticella, pitcheri and viorna seedlings last year and left them outside under a shrub. I am just starting to get germination from those, so it has been over a year for those to germinate. I was hoping indoors would be faster. Thanks for the info. Karen

You are welcome Karen. One option that I just thought of would be treating the seeds with Gibberellic Acid which is supposed to help break dormancy on seeds. I would have thought removing the seed coat would help matters and it seems to to have on my fusca seedlings but it hasn't seemed to on the viorna and glaucophyllas.

Karen, I am concerned that you used a seed starting mix in baggies, am thinking that the seeds may have rotted.
Can you take some out and peel the outer seed coat and look to see that the seeds are still ok?

Thank you, Miguel, I am really enjoying following this process!

Carol

You are welcome Carol. When the fusca greenery gets large enough to photograph I will try and take pictures of those.

Good point Helen. On top of that removing the seed coat might help hasten germination.

Well managed to get a half decent shot of the fusca seedling. The seed itself is sitting to the immediate left of the small sprout.

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One other seedling has a similar albeit much smaller sprout coming out of its seed. The other two are still sitting there taking their fine time to germinate.

Hi Maggiepie, I checked the seeds and they look good. They are all firm and do not look rotted. I peeled a few seed coats off so maybe that will speed things up. I did start some clematis serratifolia in the same seed starting mix and they sprouted as thick as dog hairs. I think the seeds just need more time.