Gadenin日本語Get the appAutumn sowing is the whole decision
Orlaya is a hardy annual with a strong taproot, and the taproot is what makes the sowing date so decisive. Seed sown in autumn germinates while the soil is still warm, spends the winter as a flat rosette pushing that root down through cool moist ground, and comes into spring with a foot of root already in place. Seed sown in spring has to build the root and the top growth at the same time, into rising temperatures, and it never catches up.
The difference on the ground is not subtle. An autumn-sown plant will typically reach 24 to 30 inches (60 to 75 cm) across and carry dozens of umbels on branched stems. A spring-sown plant from the same packet makes a single spindly stem, perhaps 12 to 15 inches (30 to 38 cm), with a handful of small heads. The autumn plant also starts flowering roughly four weeks earlier and keeps going for longer, because it comes into bloom before the heat that eventually finishes the plant off.
Sow in autumn as soon as the worst summer heat has broken and night temperatures are settling below about 60F (15C). If your winters go below roughly 5F (-15C) with no reliable snow cover, sow in autumn under a cloche or cold frame rather than in the open, or fall back to the winter sowing described below. Orlaya rosettes are genuinely hardy, but they dislike being frozen and thawed repeatedly in bare wet ground.
| Sowing time | Plant size at flowering | First flowers | Season of bloom |
|---|---|---|---|
| Autumn, in place | 24-30 in (60-75 cm) wide, branched | Roughly four weeks earlier | Long, ends with summer heat |
| Late winter, under cover, cold exposed | 18-24 in (45-60 cm) | Two to three weeks earlier | Good, slightly shortened |
| Spring, in place | 12-15 in (30-38 cm), often single stem | Latest | Short, cut off by heat |
The seed wants a cold spell, and it will still come up unevenly
Orlaya germinates best after a period of cold and damp. An autumn sowing gets that for free from the winter it sits through, which is another reason the timing works so well. If you are sowing in late winter or spring instead, you have to supply the cold yourself, or accept a thin and drawn-out stand.
Even with the cold given, germination is erratic by nature. Expect the first seedlings in 14 to 21 days at 55 to 60F (13 to 16C), then a second flush a week or two after that, and stragglers for a month. Do not clear the seedbed because nothing has appeared in a fortnight. The commonest way people lose an orlaya sowing is by giving up on it and forking the ground over just as the main flush was about to break the surface.
The seed itself is flat, bristly and light. It clings to gloves and blows off a dry surface, so sow on a still day, into ground that is already damp, and press it in with the flat of your hand rather than watering it in with a hose.
- Prepare a fine, firm, unfed surface Rake the top two inches (5 cm) to a fine tilth and firm it. Do not dig in compost or manure. Orlaya flowers best and stands up straight on lean soil; rich ground gives you soft, floppy growth and fewer heads. Sharp drainage matters more than fertility.
- Sow thinly and cover barely Scatter the seed in drifts at roughly 30 to 40 seeds per square foot (300 to 400 per square meter). Cover with about a quarter of an inch (5 mm) of sieved soil. The seed germinates in the dark, so it does need covering, but anything deeper than half an inch (1 cm) cuts the stand badly.
- Give a spring sowing its cold artificially If you missed the autumn window, mix the seed with barely damp sand in a bag and hold it at 35 to 40F (2 to 4C) for three to four weeks before sowing. Alternatively sow into deep pots in late winter and stand them outside, exposed to frost, rather than on a warm windowsill. Bottom heat is the wrong answer here and will suppress germination.
- Keep the surface damp until the second flush Water with a fine rose whenever the top half inch (1 cm) dries, for at least six weeks from sowing. Do not let the bed bake between the first and second flush of seedlings, or you will lose the later half of the stand.
Sow where it will flower, because it will not move
The taproot that makes an autumn sowing so productive is the same reason orlaya will not transplant well. Lift a seedling with more than three or four true leaves and you break the root tip; the plant then sits still for weeks, throws one short stem, and flowers poorly if at all. There is no gentle technique that gets round this. Sow it where you want it and thin, rather than raising it in a nursery bed and moving it.
If you must start under cover, use deep modules, root trainers or 3 inch (7.5 cm) pots that let the root run straight down, sow two or three seeds per cell, and plant out while the seedlings are still small, no more than three true leaves, disturbing the root ball as little as possible. Anything raised in a shallow tray or transplanted from a communal seed tray is effectively wasted.
A seedling with a bent or coiled taproot never recovers. If you turn one out of a pot and the root has spiralled at the bottom, it is quicker to sow again than to plant it.
Thin to a wider spacing than the seedlings suggest
Autumn-sown rosettes look small and tidy all winter and it is tempting to leave them close together. Then they double in width within a fortnight of the soil warming, and by flowering they are a dense mat that traps damp air, mildews early and cannot be cut from without wrecking the neighbors. Thin in stages: to about 4 inches (10 cm) apart when the seedlings have two true leaves, then to a final 10 to 12 inches (25 to 30 cm) before growth restarts in spring.
Thin by pinching or snipping the unwanted seedlings at soil level rather than pulling them, so that the roots of the ones you are keeping stay undisturbed. Thinnings cannot be replanted elsewhere, for the reason above, so do not save them.
What to record at sowing time
Three notes made now will settle every argument you have with yourself next year. Write down the date you sowed and the temperature range that week, the date the first seedling appeared and the date the flush finished, and exactly which bed or which end of the row each sowing went into. Orlaya germination is spread out enough that memory is useless a month later.
Also note whether a patch was autumn or spring sown, and roughly how wide the plants ended up. Once you have one year with both, side by side and written down, the sowing question answers itself permanently. Add the position of any patch you intend to let self-seed, so you recognize the volunteers instead of weeding them out.