Santa Rita Hills Lavender is always looking to add a little more color to Santa Barbara County, so we have taken some time from working around the farmstand and have started our Italian Ranunculus for Valentine’s Day!
These may look like little octopuses, but they are actually baby Ranunculus! These are called corbs and are each one ranunculus plant. They usually come in packs of about 250, depending on where you get them from. Once you get your corbs, you first have to soak them in water, a couple of hours is best. Once they swell to about double the size, you transfer the corbs onto a planting tray with moist soil to begin pre-sprouting.
Pre-soaking your Ranunculus is important because if you can go ahead and plant them now after soaking you will have very poor results. You pre sprout your corbs by placing them tentacles facing the dirt like it’s shown in the picture below. Once you have arranged your corbs, you then cover them with more moist soil and watch them until you begin to see sprouts popping above the soil. Spray the soil periodically to keep it moist, checking on them every couple of days to make sure they stay nice and moist.
Once they begin to sprout, you need to do some trenching! Make your trench about 3 inches deep, and then place a sprouted corb at each emitter point on your water line, our were 9” spacing so that's how we spaced them.
And that is how you start your Ranunculus! With Santa Rita Hills Lavender Hills Lavender Farm’s next planting blog, we will show you how our sprouts we've planted are doing.We hope this post was a good starting place for your own planting experience!