Ina, I often use the small styrofoam packages mushrooms are sold in, with holes pricked into the bottom, for sprouting seeds of Amaryllis family. The usual medium would be a good seed starting mix, and coarse sand. Throughout the 'hot' months here in Texas I feel the coarse sand helps to retain moisture. Otherwise, an outdoor pot of seedlings could dry out through the top layers in only one day of exposure if kept outside. At other times these containers might be in the house near a window, but under a light. They are watered from below or topped off with rain water because our city water has a lot of dissolved salts. I am always surprised to see that older seeds (kept in room conditions for a year or so) will continue to germinate over a period of three weeks to two months. Some really vigorous seeds such as Habranthus robustus strains come up rapidly and thickly (like "dog hairs", as the expression goes). Sometimes they are up within days, if fresh. Cynthia W Mueller > On Oct 27, 2015, at 6:06 AM, Ina Crossley <klazina1@gmail.com> wrote: > > Cynthia, I use just tap water. It is only Amaryllids I use this method with. One comment made in the forum, is about sunlight. I have few seeds which go mouldy. As the seeds are exposed to sunlight through the window, that may make the difference so that very few of the seeds go mouldy. There are some seeds which just do go mouldy which may be due to generally lack of care when collecting and sending seed. If seed is packed and sent as soon as it is ripe and decanted from the seed pod, if it is not allowed to dry in the open air for a few days, it can go mouldy. As one of the earliest batch of seed I sent years ago, Dell pointed out that quite a few had gone mouldy. > > https://picasaweb.google.com/105705718728872493718… > > Ina Crossley > > Auckland, New Zealand > _______________________________________________ > pbs mailing list > pbs@lists.ibiblio.org > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/list.php > http://pacificbulbsociety.org/pbswiki/