Roger, Thank you for your thoughts.

Actually I don´t find it strange at all that the seeds germinate when I put them cooler. The seeds has been started indoors in a nice moist vermiculite for around 3 months. Now when I lower the temperature for them they realize that winter is on it´s way and that they have to form a root. I actually didn´t come around to move them, so they are still in the cool and thriving. For fun I counted all of the rocky hybrid seeds so I have some statistics for you.

All seeds were started warm indoors on the 5th of october. On the 19th of december I put some testbags with 20 rocky hybrid seeds, 10 peregrina and 10 tenuifolia.

On the 30th of december 11 out of 20 rocky hybrid seeds had started to crack or form a root. None of the peregrina or tenuifolia seeds had started. Happy with that result I moved all of the seeds to the cold.

Now I counted all rocky hybrid seeds yesterday. They are in 3 separate bags, two big bags, and one smaller with the “test batch” with 20 seeds.

In the rocky hybrid test batch now 16 seeds had germinated.
In the first big bag 98 out of 115 seeds had germinated, that is 85%.
In the second bag 78 out of 90 seeds had germinated, making 86,6%.

I find that very good results, and I´m confident that they will all sprout with their first leaf after around 3-4 months, as they usually do in cold treatment. The unsprouted ones will be put in the ground in the end of may or so.

What is even more interesting is that I went through the test bag with 10 peregrina and 10 tenuifolia seeds. The tenuifolia show no sign of germination yet, but in the peregrina bag 4 seeds (40%) has started cracking. They just seem to need some more time. I don´t expect to get up to 85% sprouted seeds from those bags, but 50% is good enough for me, then I get one year ahead the unsprouted ones that will be put in the ground in may.

I totally agree with you that the out door method is easier, and the indoor one takes more work. But with seeds that I want to see fast results with and save a year it is worth it! Also, with good preparation there is not much mold. I think I only threw 3-4% of the seeds, due to rot, after starting them warm.

Since I have so many rocky hybrid seeds, I think I´ll choose 10-20 of them with ca. 3 cm long root and plant them out now. Then I will let you know if they survive or not, and if they send up the first leafs this spring. But I´d be surprised if they didn´t.