Starting Gomphrena from Seed

April 6, 2024

first year flower farming, gomphrena

March 2024

Caroline Steinmetz

Follow along as we grow gomphrena for the first time!

If you are new to the flower world, like myself, it can often be a little overwhelming trying to figure out where to start. See our blog post My Strategy Going into my First Year of Producing Cut Flowers to learn how I started our flower journey on my couch the October prior to our first flower season.

In general, I struggled to select my filler flowers for the year. I eventually settled on gomphrena because of it’s low maintenance lifestyle and ideal height (gomphrena maxes out at about 12″ tall, therefore making it a great contender for the front of a flower bed).

Gomphrena should be started approximately 6-8 weeks prior to the last frost.

After my typical research+review on gomphrena, I purchased both Qis Cream and Qis pink varieties from johnny’s seeds. Gomphrena can be extremely temperamental during germination, I was warned to expect a roughly 25% success rate with my seeds. Therefore, I planted all 50 seeds of both varieties in their own seed tray on 3/19/2024.

My Germination Environment for Gomphrena

On the day of plating I moistened my soil mixture and prepped my seed trays as usual.
Gomphrena seeds need bright light to germinate, therefore I placed the seeds right on top of the soil, covering only lightly with approximately 1/8″ of vermiculite.
I placed my seed trays on heating mats, keeping the temperature of the seeds between 75-80 degrees Fahrenheit.
The moisture level of the gomphrena was maintained between 75%-90%.
Grow lights were hung approximately 12″ from the top of the soil. We kept our lights on a 5 AM – 10 PM schedule daily. If you have grow lights with multiple color options, like me, I would recommend keeping the lights on the blue setting to promote root growth.

After a few days under the grow lights sprouts started to emerge! We left the humidity domes attached, heat mats on, and moisture levels high until one week had passed. By 3/27, approximately 15 Qis Cream and 22 Qis Pink gomphrena seeds had sprouted!

Once the seeds had sprouted and gained a few leaves, I removed the humidity dome+heat mat. The temperature dropped to a 60-65 degree Fahrenheit range. At this point, I began letting the soil dry out between watering. I watered the plants once the moisture level was roughly 30%-40%, and I would water to approximately 100% moisture level.