Garden: Epilobium angustifolium album--Am I Gonna be Sorry?

Remember last Spring when I grew some Epilobium (now Chamerion) angustifolium album from seed?  The seeds were soooo tiny!

Epilobium angustifolium album seeds--each is so tiny that it would barely
 fill the counter in the "8" in the date on the penny.

I grew two batches, one in grow pellets and one in a milk carton greenhouse.  

Epilobium seedlings growing in the milk carton greenhouse.

I got 5 seedlings from each batch, but only the ones grown in the milk carton thrived and grew strong.  It was fortunate that they did as I had hoped to end up with EXACTLY five plants.

Epilobium seedlings potted on.

I lost one of the adolescent plants due to a botched transplant attempt, but four plants lived and each went on to produce a single, wispy stalk topped with a single bloom.

Epilobium angustifolium album glamor shot.

A couple of weeks ago, I took advantage of a sun break to wander around the garden admiring fresh Spring growth.  What are these seedlings?, I wondered.  At first, I thought they might be either lilies or alliums--neither plant has ever self-seeded in my garden, so I have no idea what the seedlings look like.  But, a bit of internet sleuthing dispelled these thoughts.  Then, I realized that they MUST be the Epilobium babies!  Last year's scrawny single-stemmed plants have produced about 10 robust stems apiece.  

"Mystery seedlings" on March 13, 2016, growing among alliums.

Here they are, today, growing strongly.  Am I gonna wish that I hadn't planted them?

A sunny, cell phone picture shows robust growth.

I think I'll be OK for the moment, at least.  I planted the Epilobium with the hope that they would mingle with the out-of-control hardy Geranium "Jolly Bee".  And the runners are supposed to be easy enough to pull out if they encroach on the more delicate garden plantings.  Still...I worry about plants that reproduce by a factor of 10.

Garden: A Tale of Two Seeds

One night recently (in the middle of the night!), it came to me in a flash of clarity that the plant I need in my front garden bed is Epilobium angustifolium "album" or the white form of fireweed.

My front garden features plants that have (generally) one of three shapes:  dense, mounded plants that come from a tight crown (like Sedum "Autumn Joy", hardy geraniums, Amsonia "Blue Ice" and even some of the grasses and Allium "Summer Beauty"); then there are the tall verticals, my favorite of which is the Digitalis parviflora; and, finally, the weavers, creepers, and ground covers which are supposed to knit it all together and to provide a light and airy counterpoint to the rather solid mounds of foliage.  It is within this group that I have had the most difficulty in choosing the right plants.  I tend to choose annuals for this and, in the past, I've used Ammi magus, Ammi visnaga, Euphorbia "Diamond Frost" and various other things.  While there have been some successes, I have not yet come up with a combination that really hits the target.  

I devoted much time during the winter to solving this dilemma--surfing the internet and paging through seed catalogs.  As a result, I ended up with TONS of seeds--too many seeds, too many varieties, and just too many half-baked ideas.  So I decided to back away from the seed stash and think things through.  I knew that I wanted, maybe, just three varieties of filler plants--one taller, one shorter, and one as an accent.  I already had Nigella "African Bride" in mind as a shorter filler and a really dark purple/black breadseed poppy as an accent plant.  What, then, would be a suitable taller plant with ethereal white flowers--preferably spikes instead of umbels (because I already have a lot of umbels)?  And that's when I decided that I needed the Epilobium 'Album" to complete the picture.  I found seed at Plant World Seeds  and ordered it (two packages plus a third one free with purchase) and in a week or so I had yet another three packages of seeds to add to the collection.  Ironic, isn't it, that my solution to having too many varieties and too much seed was to buy more seeds?!

Tiny, tiny Epilobium seed.

Wow.  Those seeds were really tiny.  I had to use a dampened metal skewer to lift small groups of them into the planting pellets.  I have no idea how many seeds were included in the package, but I struggled to plant-up 20 individual grow pellets.  I sprinkled a second package of seeds into a milk carton "greenhouse" and I put those in a somewhat protected area outside.  And then I waited.  I pretty much ignored the seeds in the milk carton.  But I showered love on the seeds in the grow pellets--I misted them lightly with spring water,  monitored and adjusted the heat of their grow mat, and pushed them around the dining table to make the most of the available sunlight.  

So... I expect that you know how this turns out.  The seeds in the grow pellets sprouted a couple of days before those that were planted in the milk carton, but since then they have struggled and dwindled.  The seeds in the milk carton have thrived.  In each case, five seeds sprouted.  I thought it was a bit weird that the germination rate was that consistent (more than likely a coincidence), but it was also low--I read online somewhere that germination rate is about 1/5-6 and I have to believe that there were more than 25-30 seeds per packet. 

April 19th -- Here is the one of the first sprouts from the planting pellet group.  This was several weeks after planting and it was still so tiny that I had to use the macro lens to photograph it.  I've got my doubts about the paternity of this one--I think a white-flowered form would be pale green in all parts.  At first, I thought the red might be due to sunburn or to some other cultivation issue, but I now suspect that it might be a rogue plant due to open pollination.

Baby Epilobium angustifolium "album" (?) in a grow pellet on April 19th.

Grow pellet group on May 13th.  Only the one red seedling and one tiny green plant remain.

Milk carton group on May 13th.  Five healthy babies.  Time to pot them on, I think.  They grew pretty dramatically during the 2-3 warm days we had recently.

Tiny seeds equals tiny plants--I guess that's just common sense.  But I can't get over how tiny these plants still are eight weeks or so after sowing.  I'd hoped to see flowers this year, but now I just hope that I'll be able to find the plants themselves after planting out! 

The Epilobiums will go in the bare areas towards the bottom right of the photo--
mixing with the lilies.

The wide view shows our grass-renovation effort in progress.  Fingers crossed, the Epilobiums will go in the area to the far left and the Nigella and whatnot will go in amongst the sedums and Pennisetum "Hameln".