Full sun, they will tolerate partial shade. They prefer loose, rich soil that drains well. Drought tolerant once fully established. Lychnis chalcedonica: No pretreatment of seed is necessary. Sow barely covered 68F, germinates approx two weeks.

I don't believe there are all that many interspecific hybrids recorded in Lychnis. Take a look, for example, at the numerous Lychnis entries in IPNI (International Plant Names Index) at http://limhal.huh.harvard.edu/ipni/query_ipni.html. Only 2 names are preceded by the multiplication sign indicating known or presumed hybrid origin. The New RHS Dictionary has entries for only 2 Lychnis hybrids, the best known in my experience being L. x haageana, and there is recent evidence that that may not be an interspecific hybrid at all. The other is L. x walkeri = L. coronaria x L. flos-jovis. I suspect that L. coronaria and L. chalcedonica are not compatible, otherwise hybrids would have arisen and been recognised long ago, both being common garden plants and with overlapping flowering times (not absolutely sure of that). But I guess it's still possible that with suitable manipulation a hybrid might be produced, though in some such cases the hybrid plants are infertile or lack vigour. And by the way, current taxonomic opinion is that the distinction between Lychnis and Silene does not hold up, or in cladistic jargon, at least one of them is not a single clade which contains all members of that clade. If the logic of this is followed and taking into account the rules of nomenclatural priority, all Lychnis species are to be transferred to Silene.

Dax, I think Brian posted his information so that people would see how he does it and for beginners to use as a starting point. I don't think he means to convey that his way is the only way to germinate clematis seed and he encourages experimentation in the whole arena especially as to ways to speed up germination (soak vs. nonsoak, cold treatment vs. no cold treatment). To be quite honest, I have seen references point out the idea of actually picking the embryonic seed out of the husk on several types of clematis to speed up germination but I am not going to begin to go that far! LOL I have tried soaking clematis seed in hot water overnight and planting them. Joan, who sometimes posts on this forum under the name Bloomorelse, tried this and thought that it helped her germination times. Two sets of the seeds I tried this on included some florida hybrids and pitcheri. About 12 seeds of both types of clematis were soaked in separate containers in hot tap water overnight. Don't remember the next morning if they were floating or had sunk by that time. Both type of seeds were planted on 8/23/05 and following is what has happened to date: Florida seeds: one germination on 11/20/05 and one germination on 11/23/05. No other seeds have germinated yet in that pot but the pot is out of the plastic bag and under grow lights since the seedlings haven't produced their first set of true leaves and I don't want to risk losing them by attempting to transplant them out of the pot. The pot is moved outside into direct sunlight on those days that I am off and the weather is above freezing. Pitcheri seeds: One germination to date on 11/15/05. Ditto to no other germinations and how I am keeping the pot uncovered. No further development on the one seedling as far as any further leaf growth. In both cases, the seedlings that did emerge did so in approximately 90 days. If you look through the germination times Brian lists, he has had Florida seedlings emerge in 170, 382, and 405 days. My florida seedlings are supposed to be open cross-pollinated seeds of C. florida and who knows what else so I am unsure of what their normal germination times should be. My solitary pitcheri seedling emerged in 90 days as compared to 210 for the one entry I could find in Brian's list. Does that mean that soaking works? Don't really know and I would not venture to say since only 1 of the 12 seeds I planted has germinated to date. You may be interested in the following two links that I was directed to by someone a while back that shows different techniques to use on different types of clematis seed. I haven't really used any of the techniques but you might be interested. You need to look at both links because one gives you the code of germination techniques that is listed on the other web page. Happy reading! Germination Codes http://webhome.idirect.com/~jehan/Information/germinate.htm Germination Guide

Sorry to mess things up the method that I use is to collect seeds from pods airdry for 3 to 5 days , place in the 1 by 2 or 2 by 3 in plastic bags which you can get in a craft store on sale 200 for about 1.50 place in veg draw in frig. at a temp of around 40 to 45 degrees and you can store them one to two years I have used paper but thay dont work as well as thay collect moisture from frig.A friend of mine, air dries them then puts them in deep freeze it works for him but I havent used this method yet.I only do a few hundred crosses a year so I do have a few thousand seed to take care of I do inspect them for problems about every two months. If you have any problems or need help e mail me DICK