Pennisetum

[Shirley]

Browsing through seed catalogues planning for next year, (it's a horrid wet afternoon) I looked up pennisetum as I wanted to try and grow this from seed, and came across the following instruction

"Sow in pots or trays of moist seed compost and cover with a fine sprinkling of compost or vermiculite 6 to 8 weeks before last frost" ???

[Shirley]

[Palustris]

So now you need to be a Weather prophet too!

[laurieuk]

The RHS say that this plant is not completely hardy and in some areas might need protection in pots during severe winter, so it would seem the idea is to get the seed growing ready to plant after the frost finish but a while longer inside makimg good plants cannot hurt.

[Shirley]

Yeah, I could see what they were getting at, I just thought it was a strange way of wording it.  Just my weird sense of humour - if we next frost 10 weeks after sowing I wont mentioned it to be plant ;D

[montanum]

if we next frost 10 weeks after sowing I wont mentioned it to be plant

Is this some sort of code?

[wahaj]

i think they're talking about places that have very predictable frost patterns, year in year out. whereas the UK is very unpredictable weather wise.

this year frosts didn't end till april. so i'm assuming around mid february?

[Robert_Brenchley]

But then last year we had frost in mid-June. And some years we only get a couple of frosts all winter here. I'd plant mid-February and be prepared to keep it in a cold frame if necessary. If there's a frost forecast after it's been planted out, fleece or a cloche should protect it.