Collecting Seeds

Have you been noticing strangers lurking around your garden lately? Perhaps you’ve noticed someone furtively brandishing a pair of scissors and an envelope? An interloper snapping a quick pic before snatching the seed heads from your plant? Well, that creepy individual might well be me. The plans have been in the works for a while. Earlier in the year, I clocked the columbine varieties that I wanted to collect. And recently, I’ve been sneaking around,  surreptitiously snipping columbine seed heads into envelopes. But the plan kind of got away from me! You guessed it – columbine aren’t the only seeds I’ve taken to stealing. It seems nothing is safe from this marauding seed collector! Follow along as I surreptitiously collect seeds for plants that I have absolutely no room in my garden for.

Columbine

This is Eastern Red Columbine, which is native to North America. I found a plant in a local park and collected a few seed heads.

Columbine seeds have to be some of the easiest to collect. And these plants are prolific seed producers! Every year I have more than I could possibly use from my own patch. As I mentioned above, this year I was especially bold, collecting seeds from around the neighbourhood. It was so easy!

I packed up my scissors and nicely labelled envelopes. I actually labelled something!!

I looked for seed heads like these ones. Then I simply snipped them into my envelope.

It’s easy to release the seeds. Just shake them into the vessel you want to store them in.

After shaking the seed heads into the pill bottle, I could still hear some rattling around. It turns out that I could collect even more by breaking apart the individual seed heads.

I have no room in my garden for these, but I love them so much. I’m going to start them using winter sowing. I wonder if I can expect blooms the first year?

Drumstick Allium

This is a bit of a long shot, since this plant is generally grown from a bulb. But to me, the spent blooms look like a bunch of little seedheads. So I’m going to bury a couple as an experiment and see what happens. Here, I simply cut the spent flowers.

Malva

I planted Malva from seed last year and though a couple grew, only one plant reseeded itself and appeared again this year. But I was surprised by just how much I enjoyed it in my garden this summer. I love the colour, detail on the flower and the way the flowers grow up the stems. So I collected some seeds from my own plant. And then I saw a different variety in the neighbourhood and couldn’t stop myself from taking these seeds home as well!

Gorgeous, right?

It’s pretty easy to identify when malva seeds are ready to harvest. Spent flowers fall off and the peduncle and stalk dry up.

Normally they would normally fall to the ground with the seed attached. Once they looked good and brown, I collected some of them, leaving others to hopefully self seed.

This plant was literally growing in a ditch next to a busy street. I must have looked crazy stealing them.

They are initially in a round ball that can then be broken down into the individual seeds.

Rose Mallow (I think)

I really am hoping to introduce more plants that are native to Canada. I came across this plant in my tiny town, and was so excited that I had to pull over. I think it’s a Rose Mallow, which is native to Ontario. Some people in my Facebook groups agree and some do not. It definitely looks like the pictures I’ve found online. It was very simple to steal these seeds. I just grabbed a few stalks that looked about to drop and scurried back to my car. We’ll see if I can get anything to grow!

(Do you think this is rose mallow? Or am I fooling myself? Please weigh in!)

Poppy

I have a well-documented history of failure with poppies! I’ve failed consistently for at least five years at this point. Even winter sowing them this year didn’t lead to anything. But this summer especially I fell in love with poppies. I am determined to find a way. I have plans for how I will try yet another different way to make them grow. It’s very easy to identify when poppy seeds are ready to collect. The receptacle dries up and you can hear the seeds rattling around inside.

Each receptacle yields so many seeds! Surely something will work for me this year???

(Notice the label again?)

One thing I’ve learned from collecting seeds is that there’s plenty to go around. So if you see a freak like me lurking around your plants that are going to seed, please be kind and just ignore us. It will save us all a lot of embarrassment. And maybe you’ll see your own plants’ descendants growing around the neighbourhood! Or here on my blog.

Collected, labelled and ready for winter sowing!