Following my summer post Fine and Fantastic Fruiting Fungus I have been out in the local woods seeking these new pictures.
01.08.2023 - 15:09 / gardenerstips.co.uk / hortoris
Seed collecting can be addictive. You may quickly discover you are surrounded by drying stems and paper bags but all you need is enough seeds for your immediate needs.
Shrubs may take a couple of years to develop into larger plants but you have an opportunity to increase your stock and potentially get a new cross. Collect when the stem moves from green through yellow to brown when the seed is mature and ready. Cut the heads or stems and take inside a greenhouse, shed or garage to finally dry out hung over a sheet of paper. If seeds do not drop out naturally shake them into a paper bag. If collecting seed from berries clean away the flesh and dry the seed.
Popular Seeds Poppy seedheads traditionally yield thousands of small black seeds from the saltshaker type head. Catch them when dry and the seed head rattles. Cut the heads and empty into a paper bag or envelope. Foxgloves ripen progressively up the stem so to maximise seeds you may want to collect individual seed capsules. However they produce so many seeds that you may be content with taking all that are open and discarding the rest. Some plants have ballistic mechanisms to fire seeds away from the mother plant like Pansys, Geraniums, Aquilegia and Acanthus. They need collecting and keeping in paper bags to catch the seed. Calendula and sunflower have large seeds and are fun for kids to collect. I like Antirrhinums and plant seeds that bare a bit different or uncommon. Not all seeds will grow true to the parent plant. Pick natural species if you want them to come true like Salvia pratensis, Lyichnis chalcedonia or Lythrum salicaria.
Mechanics of Seed Collecting
Clean the husks and plant debris away before storing the seed. Mark the container with the variety, date
Following my summer post Fine and Fantastic Fruiting Fungus I have been out in the local woods seeking these new pictures.
Georgia O’Keefee painted some brilliant portraits of red Poppies some times upto 3 feet wide and high, even bigger than the real thing in my garden.The last photo shows how Red and Green work well together on a canvas or in a garden setting. Oriental poppies are perennial and most Poppy species are easy to grow from seed of which 50 varieties are available from Thompson & Morgan
Veg Seed Sowing Plans for May To ensure a continuous harvest throughout the summer rather than a glut successional sowing of salads, radishes, beetroots, carrots, autumn giant leeks and spring onions and peas should continue. Sow basil, particularly alongside tomato seedlings to help draw white fly away plus spinach, rocket and ornamental salad leaves. Globe Artichokes and Swiss Chard for looks as well as food. Pole, French and above all Runner Beans Purple Sprouting Broccoli, Savoy Cabbage, Kale and Calabrese
Get your bulb catalogues out and select your planting scheme for a glorious display next spring. Plant some bulbs just to cut for indoor flowers – the bunches will be superior to those you will pay na fortune for in the shops next year and you have the fun of growing your own.
Victorian gardeners seem to have coped very well with the winter conditions and were able to get seeds off to an early start. The climate was not too different 150 years ago to that which we endure today so how did Victorians cope. Seed was often sown earlier than we do now and the varieties of seed were no different except for some of our softer hybrids. ‘The answer lies in the soil’ and copious amounts of compost.
Members of the Buttercup family are called Ranunculaceae. To grow the plants successfully beware the seeds tend to have a short period of viability and need planting straight away.
This fleshy leaved Sedum Telephium Matrona is just colouring and clumping up in my garden. It is not as vigorous as Sedum spectabile Autumn Joy which can be come a bit of a thug if left unchecked.
From obenson flickr
The Japanese poetic work, ‘Manyoshu’ published in 759 AD but written 300-400 years prior selected 7 flowers for Autumn. This corresponds to the 7 Herbs of spring reported on an earlier post.
Since I put this list together 7 years ago but I have now started to favour Kings Seeds (Suffolk Herbs) for my vegetables. I also get many more seeds from clubs and organisations rather than merchants.
Decorative gardens can benefit from growing seedheads for their own sake. Flowers With Seedheads
To maintain the species plants have developed many strategies for dispersing their seed. They make flowers and fruit attractive so gardeners buy them in seed packets or propogate them to eat.