Karyn,

I am germinating a bunch of tomentosa seeds right now. I'm not sure how I could send one to you and keep it moist. You can get serpentaria seeds or plants from Rod Angeroth. Rod offers free seeds and sells the roots. He recently posted that he had roots.

Sandy

Here is a link that might be useful: Loess Roots link

Karyn, I was just looking at two A. tomentosa root sprouts today, that have come up in awkward spots on the outside of the raised bed where the mother vine grows. I'll dig them up, pot them up, and take care of them in the same way I do when I root cuttings - they'll need to grow more of their own roots to be successful. I've done this before, and about half take root and thrive (and I plant them somewhere else) and about half of them don't. If either of these two take, I'll send one to you, but it'll be a while before I'll know if they've succeeded or not, maybe into the summer months.
Rue is great, being a good, hardy host plant for both black and giant swallowtails, so I could use another one. Bump this post up in a few months or start another thread, and I'll let you know if these two are well rooted plants worth sending.
Sherry

Hi. Thanks for the replies. Actually I bought serpentaria roots from Rod in the past and they did poorly so I was looking for some with growth. All I have are A. fimbriata which hasn't attracted any swallowtails for me and a couple tropical pipevines.

Karyn,

Email me your address. I know we've exchanged before, but I didn't keep your info. I'll send you a small plastic bag with several seeds that are in sand germinating. They should stay moist. It does take a while to get the vines going when you grow from seed. My plants I grew from seeds last year are green and growing again this year. I think they will take off. Then when Sherry gets her plant seeded, she can mail it to you.

Sandy

I meant rooted instead of seeded! Didn't proofread =^(

Sandy I sent an email thru GW. Let me know if you got it as I've had problems with the GW mail going thru.
Thanks

Just wanted to let everyone know of my success with bare rooted plants I purchased last fall from Rod. I realize we each have different growing and soil conditions that can make a difference but for me, his well packaged and large rooted bare root serpentaria plants are all coming up beautifully for me this spring. Watch for his posts in the fall. Not only does he sell the bare rootstock but when he has extra seed, he freely shares.

Mary

I planted my A. serpentaria from Rod in the fall. I don't know if this makes a difference or not. Plus, the A. serpentaria needs a very shady, sheltered spot in the garden, a woodland setting. This is one plant that I do top dress with chicken manure each spring, too.

The disadvantage in growing A. serpentaria, as opposed to A. tomentosa, and Rod would agree I'm sure, is that you generally need a lot of it to sustain any kind of Pipevine Swallowtail population. I grow lots of different Pipevines, A. clematitis, A. tomentosa, and A. macrophylla, in addition to the serpentaria. They are the only Swallowtails that use Pipevine as a host, too.

The vines, tomentosa and macrophylla, get much larger, much faster, and you can attract the PVS much quicker using those in addition to the ground cover Pipevines like serpentaria and fimbriata. Clematitis seems to spread a bit faster than the serpentaria and fimbriata, in my experience. There is another vine, baetica, that is hardy as well, and a couple more that I can't recall off the top of my head, that are not as well advertised.

There are quite a few others that can be grown in warmer zones than mine, too.

Susan

Susan, et al,

I use the serpentaria to entice the Pipevine Swallowtails into my yard. I find more eggs and caterpillars on these plants than any other variety of Aristolochia. I feed the caterpillars with the tomentosa and clematitis. These produce more food.

This year I got some trilobata seeds to try. The plants came up and are actually growing faster than the fimbriata. I'll see how the caterpillars like this one. I planted some baetica seeds, but they seem to be slower to germinate. The durior or macrophila germinated very quickly. So, I have durior, fimbriata, and trilobata that have germinated. I have a few other varieties that haven't germinated yet either, including clematitis. I've learned that you just have to be really patient with this one.

What frustrates me, is that I pretty much can germinate and grow the different varieties of Aristolochia, but passiflora still eludes me. A BF friend sent me some instructions that I am going to try. Hopefully, I'll finally succeed!

Susan, when's the best time to call you? I thought about calling this morning, but I didn't know if you were still taking your granddaughter to school.

Sandy

No, the car is broke down right now, so even if she stays overnight, mom comes to pick her up in the morning. Best time is usually about 8:30 a.m. When she's here I always cook a big breakfast for her, so it can be kind of hectic.

Are you going to grow your trilobata in a pot so you can overwinter indoors?

My passion vine seeds dried out, so I don't expect anything to germinate now. My bad.....

Were your clematitis seeds from your own plants?

Susan

I'll be interested to know how the A. triloba does - keep us posted, Sandy.
Sherry

i need advice on growing aristolochias from seed.does a.durior really need to be put in the fridge for 90 days before it will start to germinate?does it have a high germination rate?was gonna purchase a.mashuriensis vines from arrowhead alpine.i did my research and found out it is very closely related to a.durior and the leaves a bigger and its hardier and more fast growing than a.durior.

Sandy my Aristolochia baetica seeds were extremely slow to germinate, maybe 12 weeks and germination was poor. I think I got 2 plants out of 10 seeds. I don't know if the seed quality was poor or if that's the nature of the beast with that variety. I'm not even sure that they made it thru the winter. I'd forgotten about them until I read your post.