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Ordering Seeds

I'm ordering Cofea arabica (Coffee plant), Ficus retusa (Taiwan ficus), Mimosa pudica (Sensitive plant), and Ficus benjamina (Weeping ficus) seeds. I have never raised a plant from a seed so I was wondering how I should go about growing these plants. I guess I need to know how deep the hole needs to be, how many seeds per hole, do they need a hydroponic or greenhouse setup, and anything else that might be useful? Also, the Taiwan ficus can be grown in really amazing bonsai styles. Are the plants that imitate the bonsai just that big and old, or do they just plant a whole bunch of plants together to give the trunk that "forest of small thin trees" look?
 
Someone has to have some advice! Seriously, I'm a novas. I don't even know what germination is, or how to do it, I just know you have to make the seeds germinate for some reason.
 
Different seeds have different requirements. I grew a bunch of sensitive plants from seed 30+ years ago and probably just stuck the seeds in pots of garden soil. So let's assume those are easy. I tried coffee seeds maybe 10 years ago and remember there was some trick to starting them, but I forget what it was. I did whatever it was, but it didn't help and none of them germinated. Try googling the species names plus the word seed and see if you can find help and good luck with them.
 
I have only grown sensitive plants from seed before but here is what I can tell you from my experience. I did not use anything fancy like hydroponics or greenhouses. Just dirt, water and plastic pots

I just used boring dirt I dug from our garden out back, or just normal potting soil. No need to deal with special mixes like you need for carnivorous plants. I put approx 3 seeds in a 4inch pot (1 seed per hole) and spaced them as far apart as possible.( If all of them grew really well I had to transplant them to individual pots later once they got several inches tall)


I poked the seeds into the soil so they were only buried a little bit, not too deep so that they would have a hard time making it to the surface so maybe twice the width of the seed. I don't think it was any deeper than 1 cm deep but maybe look up on the seed pack or online what is recommended. Usually they have depth suggestions on most seed packets. Then I just watered with plain tap water to make sure to keep the soil moist without drying out but not sopping wet.

I planted them outside once the weather was warm enough so they could sit in direct sun. I agree that sensitive plant seeds were really easy...and REALLY cool too once they sprouted. I should get seeds and grown them again since they were so neat.

Sorry I have no advice for the other seeds.
 
Germination means to make a seed grow...
 
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