A Gardeners Forum Forums General Discussion The Plants and Flowers Forum New Zealand Natives-Need Help

A friend sent me a couple packs of seeds from New Zealand. I did a little research on the web and it seems they may be a little difficult ot grow from seed. Anyone ever tried growing these two?

Mt. Cook lily, aka. Giant Mountain Buttercup, Ranunculus lyallii

Chatham Island Forget Me Not, Myosotidium hortensia

I plan on starting them indoors in January. Any help is appreciated.

I brought both of those home with me from NZ and have friends send me more since. I have never had any luck with them. And I really, really wanted the Chatham Is forget me nots. I will be trying them again.

I've read they can take weeks or maybe even months to germinate. The seed packet doesn't say anything about stratifying them, but some websites say they germinate better after cold treatment...so I guess I'll try it both ways.

I still have treefern trees in my fridge drawer in between damp paper towels for over a year. I'll keep on trying. I have used at least eight packets of the CI forget me nots and failed. They don't come with many seeds in them either, 4-6 I think. But if you do get them started, let me know please. Tell me how. And post pics when they bloom.

So you both have friends in New Zealand?

I do. It has been our vacation of choice for years. My kids have been there twice. And our friends come here to visit too. I love it there.

that's so weird because for some reason New Zealand popped into my head the other day and I decided to look it up thinking it would be a nice place to live. What do you like about it?

Lack of culture shock is one thing I love about it. It is a beautiful country. Its climate is much like California's without the desert and land mass is about the same size as Ca. Snow and skiing available in the Southern Alps, South Island. And the North Island is just beautiful. The people are awesomely friendly, outgoing.
The lack of culture shock I mentioned at the beginning is due to English being the primary language. And when we were there the few times we watched TV the options included a lot of American shows.
The drawbacks are that it is a volcanic country with earthquakes and a possible volcano on occasion. They have some strict rules for immigration because they are such a lovely climate. They do not want the world's retirees coming and clogging up their health care system. So they prefer younger families or someone with lots of cash to spend or invest. It is hard to blame them for that.
John lived there twice on an agricultural exchange type of thing before I met him and made many lasting friends. We made more on our travels there. It is probaly too far from your grandchildren for you to really want to live there but a wonderful place to visit.

It's still a good place because they do have regulations. Very smart. I'm always saying I'm moving one place or the other but Johnny won't go anywhere. He was born in Charlotte and Monroe is as far as he'll go.

Yes, their laws are very similar to ours and easy to live within. About culture shock, they use a dollar like ours and it was easy to figure out because it was about $2 NZ to $1 American. They didn't have dollar stores; they had $2 stores. They do use metric but that isn't too hard to figure out when shopping for food. And they do drive on the 'wrong' side of the road.

I almost got run over cross the street in Jamaica. That driving takes some getting used too.

My frined met a girl from NZ last year here in the states when they ended up working at the same place (some sort of outdoor thing teaching kids). They hit it off and now he's spending a year over there with her, sort of a trial before marriage you might say. They both got jobs working at a farm picking cherries and apricots. He also was teaching kids how to surf, etc. They plan on doing a lot of hiking and travelling. as well. He sent me the seed packets for Christmas. So if they do get married, I may end up over in NZ for the wedding, which would be my first time there.

Thats cool.

Best to do that before the babies come.

Wonder how long the flight is.

From Los Angeles it is almost 12 hours non-stop, Sheri. Always an overnight flight.