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starting Hard Seeds

I quote,

<<A traditional method for canna seeds and others with really hard seed
coats is to either chip off a piece of the seed coat or to sandpaper 
the seed coat thin in one spot.  Water can get in through the small spot
and the seed will germinate.

Many hard coated seeds are eaten by birds in nature and passed out with the
feces after the gravel-filled gizzard has worked them over.>>

You can also nick the seed coat with a file. Whatever works. If that doesn't
work, soak the seeds for a couple of hours in a dilute solution of warm
Muriatic Acid. That is Hydrochloric Acid, but not a very good quality, and is
readily available at Plumbing supply places, hardware stores, etc. Rinse 'em
off before planting, of course. 

Regarding the bird bit, the strong stomach acids and such also work on the
seed coats. Multiflora Rose was once widely used as a "harmless, will not
spread" buffer planting on highways, etc. If you ran your car off the road
into a patch of the stuff, it just stopped you gradually, without harming you.
It was thought it would not spread, because "It requires such odd conditions
to germinate the extremely hard seeds. They must be scarified, and then soaked
for many hours in warm Hydrochloric Acid." Oops! Big Mistake!

Short break. Kitten mewing frantically.

All OK now. 

The cat recently had kittens, IN an Aquarium Stand Base.  Drove us buggy,
trying to find them. You could hear them mewing when mama went to feed them,
but of course she made SURE you couldn't see her going in there. Cats are good
at hiding kittens!  Well, the other night I woke up to little mews, got a
flashlight, and started crawling around the floor, looking for hiding places.
I am 64, with a full white beard, and you have to imagine me, bare rear in the
air, crawling around the floor in the middle of the night with a flashlight,
looking for kittens. Mighty silly sight, I would imagine.  I shined the light
under the tank, and 'way back in the corner of the wooden cabinet stand, mama
cat was looking back at me. Mystery solved. Well, their eyes are open now, and
one of them had followed mama out "into the world," and was quite upset at
what they found. So, I had to rescue the little girl kitty and put her back
with the others. Aquatic Plant content?  The stand holds two "twenty gallon
talls" that have Anubias in them, SO THERE!!!!  (Anybody want a kitten?? :-) )

Back to the subject. 

Of course, those are the conditions in a bird's innards, so the fruits (Rose
Hips) were eaten by birds, and the properly treated seeds came up EVERYWHERE,
and the stuff is now a major pest. As I said in another post, a lot of problem
plants were originally put there by Government Agencies, with the best of
intentions.  SaltCedar is another plant that comes to mind. Don't let me get
started with Reed Canary Grass!
:-(

Cheers!

Jean Olson
JOlson8590 at AOL_com 

Bet you thought I was female. Nope. French first name, Norwegian last. 
:-)