Dunking Some Ranunculus – A Crash Course in Pre-Sprouting

Hiiii everyone 🙂 Me again, your friendly neighborhood gardener. Today, we’re going to talk about how I planted my ranunculus.

I’m a first-time ranunculus grower, so I looked to my one of my greatest sources of inspiration and floral knowledge, Floret Flower. This fall, they sent out a number of lovely guides that showed the best way to grow cut flowers. I don’t have a shareable link to those pamphlets, but they do have a post on their blog that summarizes how to pre-sprout, just without the pretty pictures.

Here, I won’t try to re-create the wheel – I followed Floret’s instructions quite closely, and if you’re a stickler for details, I highly recommend reading their guide. Fortunately, my husband had most of the materials on hand that were required (a bucket and a water pump), and the materials I didn’t have were easily substituted.

What we used:

• 5 gallon bucket
• 15 ranunculus corms
• Water
• Water pump
• Food storage containers
• Aluminum foil
• Cheesecloth, stockings, or some sort of mesh bag/enclosure

A Quick Step-By-Step:

• Fill the 5 gallon bucket with water 2/3 of the way full
• Place water pump in the bucket and turn on
  • You want the water moving– I’m unclear on the science of it, but if you don’t have a pump, you can just slowly keep the water running on your bucket, and let the excess flow over. Make sure the ranunculus don’t get pushed out, though!
• Place the ranunculus corms or in the mesh bag/enclosure
  • This is to keep them from getting sucked into the pump. I guess you could put the pump in the bag, but putting the corms in also makes for easier cleanup.
• Let the corms soak in the moving water for 3-4 hours. They’ll be significantly plumper than they were when you put them in dry.
• Fill a flat container (I just used the largest food storage I had, since I didn’t have a seed tray). with soil.
• After the corms have finished soaking, pull them from the water and place them in the soil, and cover with more soil.
• Wrap the tray with aluminum foil to block out light and any critters that may take an interest in the corms
• Let the corms sit and grow their roots for 14 days in the soil. Ideally, you’ll have mostly (if not all) growth from the “tentacle” root side, and minimal growth from the sprout / top side.
• Plant the pre-sprouted corms on day 14, with the “tentacle” side down, 3 inches deep and 9 inches apart.

• 

• 

It’s supposed to take about 90 days for a ranunculus to produce a flower, so I would say we are running pretty close to schedule. I haven’t found any buds on the plants so far (and, boy, do I try hard to find one!), but I guess this is what I get for planting a little late.

remember, patience is a virtue.

-bbb