I find a fortnight ahead of planting out is plenty. Plus four to five days for hardening off. So roughly 3 weeks altogether from sowing to transplanting outside. I grow in small pinches in modules and do not pot on. No heat and no lights. (I grow them in a glass porch). Lettuce tolerates pulling apart of several seedlings from a clump. I don't mind if some get a better start than others because I don't want them all ready at once anyway.

Well, RR, where do I begin? First off, where did you get those seeds? Ebay, perchance? I hate to break it to you but you may well have been scammed. There are some very unscrupulous dealers on there and others who bought seeds this way ended up with anything from roses to radishes. You need to know that roses DO NOT grow true to variety from seeds. There are a very few exceptions in the wild rose category that will self seed and grow true but all other varieties, especially modern hybrid tea roses like Osira, do not. Each individual seed will be it's own new variety. It may look similar to either of it's parents or it may look like any of the roses that went into the parents breeding but it will not be the same rose. So Osira seeds will not grow Osira rose bushes. The only ways to to grow roses true to their original variety is by rooted cuttings or bud grafting. Basically cloning. Secondly, not knowing exactly what your growing set up is, I will tell you that, for the most part, roses HATE to be inside. It is very difficult to produce the right temperature, humidity and light combination that will make them happy and thrive. I have tried many things and never succeeded in keeping even the small mini roses alive indoors for more than a couple of months. Barely long enough for winter to end and I can plant them outside.where they immediately perk up. I do hybridize roses and start my seedlings in January inside under lights during the winter. But as soon as it's warm enough for them to go outside they do! Sometimes that's as early as March if at all possible. They always struggle until they get out in natural sunshine and humidities and then they take off like gangbusters! If you'd like to know how I do my seeds send me a PM with your email address and I'll send you the paper I did for my rose society. Or go to the link below which is the Propagation forum and you'll find tons of info on how to grow rose seeds. There are as many ways to do it as there are growers, lol! Here is a link that might be useful: Propagation forum on GW

I would also take some extra fresh hips, soak them and remove the fruit from the seeds, do not let the seed dryout, plant them right away in a pot and keep it outside and moist, let the winter do it's thing and you would get some sprouting in the spring. I got rose hips to sprout in place right in the ground this way too. See the winter propagation info on the seed propagation forum. I think it is still in the FAQ link at the top of the forum. I just went over there and now there is a separate forum on winter sowing, too. Here is a link that might be useful: winter stratification etc

Actually, all you need to do for a lemon tree is plant it in loose soil, water the soil lightly, and stick it in a ziplock bag. See this thread: http://forums2.gardenweb.com/forums/load/trees/msg111341588777.html That lemon tree is mine. I grew from seed. All I did was (STEP BY STEP leaving out absolutely NO information) 1) I grabbed the seed from a lemonade drink made from a lemon bought from a lemonade stand, this past summer 2) put the seeds in a cup of water. All of them sank(sadly, I have no clue where they are now) 3) Placed them in a container somewhere (except for 6) 4) took that plastic cup and cut some holes in the bottom 5) put soil (which turned out to be harder than rock when watered) inside the cup 6) stuck the seed in the cup 7) watered the soil lightly 8) stuck the seed in a plastic ziplock baggy 9) put it on the counter 9) Forgot it was even there About 2 weeks later, I said "OH CRAP! AM I TOO LATE? IS IT DEAD? I CAN'T BELIEVE I FORGOT ABOUT IT!!! OH MY GOSH, PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD! PLEASE DON'T BE DEAD!!!" After panicking and looking for about 20 minutes, I finally found it buried under a lot of crap. I looked into the bag and I'm thinking, "Awwwwww!!!! It's so cute!!!" There was a little lemon tree with it's first two leaves sprouting. After I saw that, I stuck it in the windowsill where it's currently working on it's 5th leaf while finishing up it's 4th. It's the most beautiful thing ever. I would've increased the germination rate though to all six seeds instead of 1 of 6 if I had followed the directions provided online though(nick the seed coat and all that other stuff). But really, just planting the seed and forgetting about it for about 1-2 weeks seemed to work fine. I probably just got lucky though.