Don't worry about having too many questions! We all have them and enjoy answering them too.

...bags of yard items you open and don't finish...
As long as you aren't getting a sour smell off of the product I would say it's OK to use. I just leave everything in it's original bag and have kept some for well over a year.

...seeds...
You can still try planting old seeds but you probably won't get a very high percentage of germination. There isn't anything wrong with old seeds, they just dry out completely and are no longer alive. Some seeds may benefit from being put in the fridge (in a tight ziplock bag to prevent drying) for storage but I don't know which would be OK with that and which would be harmed. Someone else here can probably comment on that.

...sand and peat moss...
Our soil is so sandy you don't need to add any sand to it, but if you want to use sand in a container for rooting then you can find it for sale at Home Depot or Lowes. Probably any garden center, too. I don't start anything in sand and peat so I can't comment on if it's a preferred method or not.

...seeds in the ground and in a pot...
Some seedlings hate to be transplated and so are better started in the garden where you want them. Others do fine with transplanting. Usually it will say on the package if they should be directly tossed into the garden or not. Heavy mulch can hinder sprouting, expecially if the mulch is large or heavy chunks of bark. Seeds can also get washed out of the garden by rain or eaten by whatever. They are more protected in pots.

...lemon tree...
Citrus can take a few years before they produce much fruit. The common wisdom is to remove all the tiny fruit during the first year to make sure the plant is putting it's efforts into a good root system. The second year you may or may not get anything. With quarterly feedings and adequate water, it should give you a few lemons next year. Even once it starts holding lots of fruit, it will probably have a year every once in a while when you get almost nothing.

HTH (hope that helps)

Kate

Hi Jelly!

You're bound to get a lot of different opinions on these, as we all do things differently, and most of the time, it still works!

1) I keep my potting mixes in the original bags and fold the top over so no rain or bugs get in. I think these keep for a very, very long time. Wouldn't worry about spoilage. I don't use bagged peat moss or mulch. You might get a little breakdown, but I can't imagine any harm would come to plants.

2)Store-bought seeds will usually keep another year, but the germination might suffer a little. I would still save them in a dry cupboard and use them up next year. More important is to plant them at the proper time of year.

3)What are you trying to root? I root most things in sterile potting mix with lots of perlite mixed in. Most things I put in a covered storage box for extra humidity. I'm not sure what you would root in sand and peat moss.

4)Alyssum is a cool weather annual for us. It fries during our heat. Try again in the ground next winter or late fall. Some things transplant well, others don't. Depends on what it is. People here will help answer that, I don't know specifically about alyssum.

5)I bet your meyer lemon will fruit next year if it gets enough sun. Citrus in general doesn't like a lot of water after established, and no mulch or underlying ground cover.

Keep asking questions! We all like answering them, but know you may get many different answers to the same thing, and they may all be right!

Anna

Hi, Jelly. Best wishes to you in your new garden! Everything that Kate and Anna already wrote is exactly what I would have told you, plus this:

My green-thumbed uncle swears by rooting cuttings in a pot of moist sand nested inside a shallow pot of water. He uses the bagged sand that they sell at Home Depot or Lowes. He inverts a gallon size Ziploc bag over the cutting as a tent to retain moisture. He has had much success with rooting hibiscus, roses and azaleas. I tried to duplicate his efforts and found that this does not work for me personally. However, I can confirm that rooting in moist sand works well for rooting Persian Shield and Coleus. Please note, those plants are pretty easy to root in just about anything, so that's not really saying all that much for the moist sand method.

Kate, thanks. That is a lot of help really. I was thinking it was the thick mulch, which is heavy that stopped those seeds. Now I know not to do that again. And I wasn't worried about the lemon tree until I was reading some old threads and people were getting lemons in their first and second year. Then I started wondering if I wasn't doing something right. But I'll go back to not worrying and make sure I water and fertilize it.

Also can I ask, what do you put plants you are rooting in?

Anna, thanks for all the info. I'd like to root a variety of things, but thought I would start with 2 things I read were easy to root - crepe myrtle and azalea. Is sterile potting mix different than the normal potting mix?

Oh I do still have grass/weeds under my lemon tree. I'll have to carefully remove it when I get some non-rainy weather again. Can I put some sort of edging around it to keep the St. Augustine/weeds at bay?

nativemel, thank you. I will definitely try the moist sand. I'll even try the tent. Just having a variety of methods to try will lead me to what works for me. I figure I'll take extra cuttings and try several ways at once and see what happens.

The easiest way to root azalea is to take a long, low hanging branches and gently scrap the underside of them. Then bury a portion of the branch, still attached to the bush, under a thin layer of dirt and pin it down with a rock. After a few months the pinned branch should have a good root system and you should be able to cut it away from the parent bush and move it to a new location.

jellybobelly,

Welcome!

One thing that occurred to me right away with the alyssum is, did you water the pot faithfully and maybe let the seeds out in the yard get too dry? I have lots of trouble starting seeds in the dry season directly in the ground. It just gets so dry, and with all that dirt around, it's hard to keep the soil the seeds are in moist enough for germination. The smaller amount of dirt in a pot is easier to maintain, for me at least.

And I've used straight peat moss for air layering. The rock and dirt method is basically air layering and I've never tried it with azaleas, but my grandmother, a great gardener and native Floridian, swore by that. And her azaleas were beautiful.

There are also lots of things that will root in a glass of water on the kitchen sink. I root persian shield that way all the time. Crotons also do well that way.

Have fun, and keep the questions coming.
Susannah

Your best source for gardening information for Florida gardeners other than here is :

www.solutionsforyourlife.com

Enter Dooryard Citrus Guide to the search . Print out and read everything you can find there . If you follow their fertilizing schedule and guidelines you will have healthy citrus trees .

Ditto for anything else you are trying to grow . The Solutions website is a goldmine of reliable info .

Tom McCubbins recommends storing seeds in the veggie drawer of your fridge . Take the seed packets or seeds you have harvested and put them in zip bags or plastic containers . Be sure to label your seed containers - the date you packed them and any other info you might forget months from now . Seeds stored in air tight containers in the fridge will have an 80% or better germination rate even after 2 years .

When rooting cuttings , do not root them in water first . Sterile commercial seed starter mix will help improve your odds of seed and cutting success . I make cuttings and just put them in pots of soil or straight into the ground and have had good results . A sterile product will ensure a higher success rate and fewer problems for you .

Keep asking questions . That helps all of us think and become better gardeners .

nativemel, one more question (don't hold me to that). At Home Depot the garden person told me the only sand they have is the playground sand. Is that the sand I would want?

karalynn, will that still work if I have a thick layer of mulch there? Or should I move the mulch away from the branch I pin?

Susannah, I was very faithful about water the seeds in the ground. I had planted them next to some newly planted hibiscus (replacements for a freeze casualty). I think to be safe I'll just start seeds in a pot. I guess I'll start keeping the plastic pots plants come in for re-use just for that.

My azaleas aren't the most beautiful, but considering they are never watered or feed and still bloom every year must mean they are hardy. My neighbor would like to neglect some of her very own, which is why we want to take cuttings of mine.

gatormomx2, thanks for the link and search terms. I've read other things on that site, but not that citrus guide. Reading that guide, I DEFINITELY didn't water my lemon tree enough. I'll use their info to make sure I follow a better schedule for the future. And thanks for all the other info as well. I can hardly wait to root something. A plant from a plant sounds like magic.

I have been known the leave manure in the bag until the plastic bag decomposed around it. The manure was still fine. Once I left a 20 lb. paper bag of corn gluten fertilizer/seed suppressant in the shed all winter. When I picked it up in the spring, it was empty. The little woodland creatures had chewed a small hole in the bottom and sucked it dry.

I think rooting has more to do with karma than medium. My mother could stick a rose cutting in the ground and root it. I can't root roses no matter what I do. Geraniums are easy to root in whatever the mother plant is growing in. For woodier plants, try to find willow twigs and put them in water with your cutting. The willow secretes something that keeps the cuttings from hardening off so they root easier. My carefully prepared rooting mediums never worked for the roses so I usually use whatever I have on hand that seems like it would be easy for little roots to make their way through. So far, so good. Except for the roses.

Bagged stuff. If it is potting soil with fertilizer in it, the fertilizer may loose something over time, especially if exposed to moisture or humidity. Sterile potting/rooting/seeding mix will no longer be sterile if the bag is left open for long.

Then again, I've quit buying any form of bagged dirt and I plant seeds and root cuttings in a mix of old potting mix (whatever was in the flower pots before) and compost (lately mostly mushroom compost.) I'm not much for sterilizing anything seeing as good healthy soil should be teaming with microbes. I actually do most of my rooting in the gravel of my Aquaponics System anyway.

As to gardening, have fun and don't stress too much about it, it's only dirt and plants.

Here is a link that might be useful: TCLynx

"...have fun and don't stress too much about it, it's only dirt and plants....

That's exactly right. Talk to 5 gardeners and you'll find 5 ways to do anything (probably 10 ways once they start telling stories about how someone else they know does it), and all of them will work. Mostly, I use whatever I have on hand.

If you can find pine fines (well mulched or shredded pine bark mulch) you might want to try that as a rooting medium. I love using it, along with a little rooting powder, and have even used it without any other soil in containers.

Kate

Yep, start saving those little plastic pots. You're about a season away from never having enough pots. I know what of I speak. Suddenly I'm rooting everything in site, starting seeds in yogurt tubs (cream cheese and sour cream cups work nicely too - they come with their own saucers!) and rooting around in the neighbor's recycling bin for pots (ok, actually, the dear boyfriend stopped me from doing that, fearing I would be baker acted.)

I have dozens of pots and potential pots stored in a cubby under the house now. I go to Goodwill and buy chipped saucers to go under pots. It's truly out of control. But when it's time to pot up 30 tomato seedlings (honestly, I gave half of them away) I had pots. I think there are GWers who got yogurt tubs with tomatoes in them from me.

Because once you start this, you will discover you need different sized pots and it just goes on and on.

I see it as recycling 2.0. I use every yogurt tub at least twice and often more than that. It needs to crack before it goes in the recycling.

Thanks everyone for all the info. I will be using different suggestions to find what works for me.

cjc45, I'll have to start working on my karma to make sure that I'm on the good side before I try my first cutting. Put up a bird feeder over the weekend so that should help.

tclynx, I'm going to have to set aside a chunck of time and go through your site. It looks very interesting. I had never heard of aquaponics before so I will read that section very carefully.

Kate, I will try not to stress. I do tend to over think things even before trying. But I usually relax a little once I start as I realize I was worrying too much about the details.

natives_and_veggies, from now on I'll be saving all the pots I can. That is really good to know, as I have a chance to start building a collection before I really need them. And I'll be looking in my fridge for potential containers as well as I wouldn't have thought about those. Thanks.