Save those precious little seeds – and a small fortune
MOST gardeners grow plants from packets of seeds bought from garden centres or online nurseries. However, there’s a more rewarding way of raising plants from scratch that won’t cost you a penny… collecting seeds from annuals, biennials, perennials and ornamental grasses that are growing in your own garden.
Late summer until the end of autumn is the key time to gather seeds from many plants that produce pods, capsules and seedheads once their floral display is over. The technique is dead easy and doesn’t require any fancy equipment – all you need is a pair of secateurs, some brown paper bags, a marker pen and a few airtight containers.
Among plants suitable for seed-saving are nigella, field poppy, calendula, larkspur, cornflower and many other hardy annuals, along with a host of popular perennials, including lady’s mantle, aquilegia, hollyhocks, astrantia and lilies.
If you want to add more grasses to your garden, try saving seeds from carex, pennisetum and Stipa gigantea.
Bear in mind that in most circumstances, only straight wild species (such as Astrantia major) will germinate true to type and cultivated varieties (like Astrantia major ‘Large White’) are normally propagated by another method, such as division. If you do save seeds from cultivated varieties, be prepared for the seedlings to look different from the parent.
It’s best to collect seeds on warm, sunny days to ensure they are dry – midday is a good time to head out as morning dew will have evaporated. In my experience, seeds are more difficult to extract from damp pods and they will go mouldy in storage unless dried thoroughly indoors. Ideally, avoid windy days to prevent any seeds blowing away.
It’s essential to collect seeds when ripe to ensure they’ll germinate. This is usually made evident by seedheads turning from their normal green to golden brown or black, or by capsules starting to crack open.
Other clues include whether you can hear seeds rattling in pods or if seeds can be stripped effortlessly from stems.
The way you collect seeds depends on the plant. Remove seeds from grasses by sliding them off with your fingers, and disperse the contents of pods and capsules by shaking them into a bag – another option is to cut them off intact for extracting later. Write the name of every plant you gather on the outside of collection bags.
Take a different approach to plants that have exploding seedheads or drop their seeds easily when touched. Place a bag over the seed head, gather the bottom together and cut through the stem to leave the head inside. This method is also useful for plants with wide seedheads, such as fennel and Ammi majus.
Don’t go mad and snip off every seedhead that you find. Leave some on plants to add sculptural interest to beds and borders over winter, and to provide food for hungry birds. Those belonging to sea hollies, calamagrostis, pennisetum and rudbeckia are particularly long-lasting and will often still look good well into the New Year.
Head indoors and empty bags on to sheets of white paper. Remove debris, spread out the seeds and place on a windowsill to dry for a few days. When they’re ready, tip seeds into envelopes, seal, label and place in an airtight container, adding a sachet of silica gel to remove moisture. Keep in a cool, dark place until sowing in spring.