How I grew the seeds: I planted them in trays outside. The trays were only taken in if a freeze was threatened. Burned in my memory is an old book on germination which discussed how some plants need significant weather fluctuations to germinate. It discussed Cleomes as it's prime example. Maryland and some other states call them invasive. So I guess if you can simulate the swings in Maryland's winter/spring temperatures you could get success. 715Rose 's point is excellent. I have two groups of cleomes grown from seed. One, the classic Queen cleome ; the second are seeds from the new Sparkle which is thorn-less. I plucked the seeds off a Sparkle plant, so my seeds are not the first generation of this F1, so will see if they produce thorns or not. Incidentally the young plants apparently grow slowly like pentas. Here is a link that might be useful: Sparkle This post was edited by bugbite on Sun, May 26, 13 at 15:53

That was plenty enough detail to let us know you're either a beginner or you're getting weird advice from somewhere. That's fine and makes good background. Some of what you did was stuff that didn't need to be done. Once you have exposed soil, you don't need to loosen it; all you need to do is apply the seed and step on it to push it into the surface of the soil. Raking will bury some of the seed and that is not ideal. Grass seed should only be buried half the size of the seed, so simply walking on it is perfect. For large areas a roller is used. Misting was good, but perhaps in the sunny areas it needs a little deeper misting. You could try hitting that area with a little more water to try and sprout the seed you already applied. Fescue grows as a plant which does not spread quickly. The reason for criss-crossing the planting is so you don't get the corn row effect of little fescue plants all aligned in a row. That can leave room for weeds to penetrate between the rows of fescue plants. Weeds love the sunlight provided between the plants. If you fill the gaps with more fescue plants, then the weeds don't come. So for that reason alone, you might want to add more seed and continue watering. You did not need straw although it seems to be a local custom in some parts of the country. Using it really seems to complicate the new seed process. The danger you were warned about comes from using hay instead of straw. Hay has seeds. Straw does not have seeds.

Enjoyed the links posted here. Here's my own 2 cents on this. I do all the seeding for a CSA (about 70 boxes per week), sow about 300 lettuce seeds a week for 7 months straight. The first and second year made many mistakes and got poor germination. Putting lettuce trays on heat mats did reduce greatly the germination rate. Putting the trays in a unheated hoop house also didn't work, it got too hot during the day. Now we just leave them outside. In spring gets down to 45F at night, maybe 55F during day. We use automatic overhead sprinklers, so the trays get over watered every day. Our seedling table must provide water for all the seedlings so must water enough for the largest plants. To prevent damping off, use a 1:1 perlite:peat mix (Black Gold seedling mix) with some sifted compost included 4:1 mix:compost. The overall mix is light and airy. A coir based mix didn't work, stayed too wet. Use only solid fertilizers, liquid ones get washed away with the overwatering. For the mix, I add in crabshell meal (Eliot Coleman recommendation), greensand, and soft phosphate. When I added in bloodmeal or fish meal to the mix I got damping off. To much available nitrogen. When the seedlings are about an inch tall, I sprinkle a mixture of bloodmeal and sifted compost over them. This gives them the needed nitrogen and once an inch high, I've never had any damping off. To save time I never tap the seeds into the mix. After filling the tray with mix, just drop/bang the tray against the table 4 times to get the mix to settle to a good firmness. Put the seeds on top and add a layer of fine vermiculite and overhead water. The fine vermiculite layer noticeably increased our germination rate on all seeds. Keeps the top moist and more importantly protects an emerged seedling from fungus. The vermiculite is sterile.

Seeds from Jackmanii, or most any other hybrid clematis for that matter, won't give you more plants of Jackmanii, although the results could be similar; but equally they could be very different, or anywhere between! But that's the beauty of it - you get to raise original, new plants more or less every time, and you are the first person to see the new flowers. If you raise seeds over a reasonable period of time, if something particularly good eventually comes along you can give the plant a name, and, you never know, with luck and persistence you might even be able to earn something from it commercially, in time. But that's not the main aim - the fact is, most clematis (I am not saying this because I am biased!) produce beautiful plants with beautiful flowers that you will get a lot of pleasure out of - that is the main aim. Whichever, once the seed is germinated you are past the biggest hurdle and with a little more work you can soon have brand new plants producing brand new flowers, and I don't need to tell you, that's terribly exciting! Seeds of most of the jackmanii-types, and the other larger flowered hybrids, take between 180 (conservative) and about 400 days to germinate. You occasionally get some coming relatively quickly - about 200 days, but I would say the average is about 300 or so days, and most (but by no means all) will have germinated by 400 days. But you don't know in advance how long a given batch will take, so it is prudent to plant them in a manner that will ensure they are kept in good condition until they do germinate. So sow them in small pots with a dozen each pot, water, allow to drain, and once sown, cover the soil surface with a layer of grit-type material to a depth of one quarter inch or so - this helps preserve the moist, and helps suppress the growth of some mosses, liverwort etc. Enclose each pot in a top-sealing plastic bag and store the pots in trays for easy handling. For certain, keep them away from direct exposure to the sun's rays. Best to keep them covered and out of the way. (Personally I do this even for the quicker-germinating seeds too, but you could decide these specific ones perhaps don't need quite the same preparation). Yes, it's a little more effort, but these measures alone will ensure your seeds will keep in excellent condition for two or more years - plenty of time to germinate most types of seed. Once the pots are stored you can commence checking for germinations after 6 months, then weekly thereafter, until you notice the sprouts. There is then a critical period of three months while you bring the germinations from tiny sprouts to small plants. After this, the plants will largely look after themselves in terms of survival, but of course you will need (and want) to tend them throughout, otherwise, as with any other plants or young seedlings, neglect will lead to problems and losses. If they germinate in spring so much the better, because you will have all the coming season, with agreeable weather, to follow, while they are establishing. If they germinate during, or just before, winter, that makes things more difficult since you have to keep them going during the cold period - this is slightly harder, but that doesn't mean it is too difficult - it just demands a little more care. Once they are established, even young seedlings are tough, and in due course they will do their level best to flower for you as soon as they physically can. You just have to give them a little regular TLC and attention. When seedlings begin to produce flower buds for the first time the anticipation becomes massive, and as the flowers form you'll find yourself speculating on the possible outcomes!!! Not only are they brand new flowers, they are YOUR OWN new flowers! Never seen by anyone, ever, before! Remember that species seeds, as long as they have not cross-pollinated ("hybridised") with other clematis growing nearby, will produce daughters which are quite similar to the parents - they "come true"; whereas seed from hybrids will produce offspring that CAN be similar to, but, much much more likely, will show marked differences to, the parent = they usually WON'T "come true". So, seeds gathered from wild populations where clematis exist as discrete populations of plants, will more often than not "come true", whereas plants, even species plants, grown in garden environments, where other clematis may be growing in the neighbourhood, probably won't come true, because the bees and other insects introduce pollens from other sources to the flowers (clematis are insect pollinated). So, even if you receive seed from somewhere where the known pure species proper is grown, be aware that the seed may still produce some hybrids, if the plants from which the seeds are gathered are growing near other, different (but compatible) clematis plants. You'll find the smaller, thinner-walled clematis seeds are easy to germinate and raise on. So, any of the "orientalis" group species (C. tangutica, C. serratifolia, C. tibetana etc), and hybrids ("Golden Tiara" etc); and many of the alpinas and macropetalas, and so on, will germinate after 30 - 90 days and be up before you know it. And you can have (with best care) flowering plants sometimes even within a season, or at most, two seasons, from then. The viorna group - C. texensis, C. viorna, C. crispa, and so on, and their hybrids, are more like the large-flowered hybrids in that their seeds tend to be thicker-walled, tougher and take longer to germinate. Some might require periods of cold to help them germinate, but that's no problem - store your trays of seed pots where they feel the outside temperatures -I keep mine under the staging in the cold greenhouse - during the colder months they freeze and thaw with the natural cycle. That leaves a large batch of species, and hybrids of species etc which take, on average, roughly 100-200 days or so to germinate - in other words 3 to 6 months or slightly more. No matter what type you raise, treat them all the same in the first year after germination. There is no need to complicate anything more than needs be. And just because some need shorter periods to germinate, it doesn't follow that they are any less enjoyable or beautiful than those which take longer - they are just different types of plants. Some of the orientalis-group plants (the small-yellow-flowered group) will give seedlings which will fill a two litre pot with roots, and flower beautifully, even in the very first season after germination, even for the first-time raiser. So ideally you could start with a mix of several types of seeds, some of which will come relatively quickly, along with some that will take longer - that way you can be seeing germinations quickly, and then tending young plants, and bringing them to flower, even while you are waiting for the others to germinate. However much effort you put into it I can promise you that the results will always more than outweigh the work. This is just a quick reply so I have not thought every word through to the nth degree - so if anything seems ambiguous or unclear there is much more detailed info on the web site mentioned above. If you have access to seeds, have a look at the germination data (on the Germination page!), and just get an idea of what GROUP your seeds fall into - that will be sufficient for you to get a reasonable idea of how long they might take. Most of us start with seeds of large flowered hybrids from our own garden plants, and they are certainly a great way to start. You can look out for species seed sources as you go along; but do also try the orientalis group, the alpinas, the macropetals, you will be rewarded much more quickly and soon get bitten by "the bug".