Like tiny pieces of bright blue sky dropped into your garden, forget-me-nots are one of the few true-blue flowers available to gardeners.These plants are steeped in history and symbolism, and are eas
12.06.2023 - 01:12 / gardenerspath.com / Sylvia Dekker
How to Harvest and Save Black-Eyed Susan SeedHere are two things I love: wildflowers, and collecting seeds from my garden to save for next year.
It only makes sense to combine the two into a fun, relaxing, kid-friendly, educational activity, right?
Rudbeckia hirta is one of those wildflowers that’s simple to grow, beautiful to have in the garden, and easy to collect from.
So once I have an established patch, I will be visiting it regularly to watch the pollinators, revel in the bright blooms, and harvest some future plants contained in a tiny black package.
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Once you’re sure the seeds are mature and ready to be collected, it doesn’t take much to gather a bag to start indoors or sow outside next year. And they’re perfect for sharing!
To find out how to decide when to harvest, how to harvest, and all the details on storage, keep on reading! This is what we’ll cover:
PollinationEach black-eyed Susan bloom is really made up of around 250 to 500 tiny flowers, contained in the brown-black “eye,” or center cone, and surrounded by a ring of oversized, bright yellow petals which serve as come-hither beacons for pollinators.
If you look closely, you’ll notice that these tiny flowers bloom, producing sun-colored pollen, in rings starting on the outer edges and progressing to the center during the bloom period, eventually creating an elongated cone.
The winged creatures that come to investigate the vibrant, contrasting flowers are treated to a sip of nectar produced by each flower, so you can imagine pollinators love this wild bloom.
As the bees, butterflies, flies, and wasps drink nectar, they pick up and deposit pollen,
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