Auricula Theatre - seeds or plants?

[MrsBobDylan]

I am trying to re-work our backyard on the cheap.

Managed to pick up a couple of pallets and some lovely small terracotta pots for pennies yesterday. I want to make some shelves for an auricula theatre.

Can I grow auriculas from seed? I watched Gardeners World last night and Monty was talking about putting his seed plants on the radiator or something.

The last time I planted something I was 6 and grew cress in my Mum's air cupboard. Any advice would be so helpful!

I have Auricula plants that are several years old every year they multiply with plantlets, which I divide. About 18 months ago I decided to sow seeds in order to get more variety. I sowed them in an unheated greenhouse, they took ages to germinate, eventually did last summer. They have grown very slowly and I now have seedlings a few cms. high.
I obviously did something wrong, possibly not enough heat at germination. But I am persevering!
My Auricula theatre was made out of some wooden staging, but I did search Pinintrest and there’s lots of good idea there, from sepladders to old book cases.

Yes, you can grow Auricula from seed, but all primula seed needs to be fresh and can be erratic in germination. They won’t flower the first year from seed.

What I’d do is use the auricula theatre to display something else this year, try some auricula seed, then, if you don’t get enough plants from the seed, buy some plants next year.

I won’t give any advice on growing auricula seed as I’m hopeless at it! My first batch did ok, but I’ve had at least two failures since.

The other thing is auriculas are divided into show varieties and garden varieties. Garden varieties are lovely with a good range of colours, but it’s the show varieties which have the really good farina and the almost artificial looks, and I’ve never seen seed for show varieties, only for garden varieties. They’re both worth display, though, and you’ll get some farina from garden varieties if you keep the rain off

In the summer I give the Auricula a rest in a sheltered place. I then use the staging to display my Hostas, it keeps the slugs away.

May I ask where your pots were from? I'm in need of a good number, as I've no garden now, only a v small yard. With everywhere closed, I haven't even been able to scour charity shops etc to find containers.

Well, I clearly had no idea that growing from seed is an art form.

As fate would have it, I bought some seeds at The Range and then left them at the till. I went back and decided to buy a variety of small, colourful looking plants and have just painted the pallets (or the theatre as it has become )

@LostInTime I got the pallets and pots from a place in Stevenage, Herts called 'Waste Not Want Not'. I did buy some more pots from The Range though and am tracking some on eBay.

At the moment the backyard looks like a building/bomb site because dh has been breaking up concrete and trying to level it so we can sit in it this summer.

I can't remember which seeds Monty planted on GW last night, but he meant those particular seeds needing warmth from a radiator if you put the seed tray on a windowsill. So other plants would not necessarily need those conditions to germinate.

Thanks @MrsBobDylan - Stevenage is a little too far for me to go, particularly with the need to still stay local
I don't think we have the range anywhere near us, I have heard people recommend it before on MN.