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February: Stratify Seeds

If you didn't get seeds into the ground in the fall, don't panic. There's still time to do the cold treatment thing indoors
Not all seeds require cold treatment. For those that do, place seeds in a small ziplock baggie - I like to use snack-size bags.
Put in a tablespoon or two of moist, fine, potting soil. These seeds were large, so I used more soil. Soil should not have added fertilizer. It should not be wet, merely moist.
Shake the baggie with the soil and seeds so they are well-mixed. Leave in some air, but seal the bag so the soil doesn't dry out.
Place in fridge (4 deg C) for 1-3 months, depending on the species. After stratification, divide the soil and seed mixture into appropriate portions, place on top of soil in new pots, and water lightly. There's lots of variations on this method and most anything will work so long as the seeds are moist while in the cold.

To find information about germination requirements for individual species, put the species name and the word "germination" into a search engine. For example, I'd use the following string in Google:
+"Brachyelytrum erectum" +germination
and found this site. They use "sphagnum" instead of soil. Soil, peatmoss (sphagnum), vermiculite, perlite, it probably doesn't matter, so long as it retains enough moisture to keep the seeds moist. Like I said, lots of variations and latitude in this little trick.

See the next Tutorial in this series dealing with Seed Germination and the Links therein.