Gardeners looking to save money may be able to harvest the seeds of some plants that are ready now
If you’ve noticed your garden flowers starting to turn brown, it might be the perfect time to begin collecting seeds for next year’s free plants. Garden influencer Anya Lautenbach, author of The Money-Saving Gardener, among other budget-friendly gardening books, suggests that collecting seeds from plants like lavender, foxgloves, honesty, wallflowers, poppies, sweet peas, and Nigella damascena (Love-in-a-mist) is a simple way to save money.
“Seeds are like treasure,” she said. “They have to ripen on the plant so you can’t speed up the process. You can’t collect seedheads when they are green – you have to wait for that moment to happen.”
She also urges gardeners not to overlook perennials, which may also be ripe for seed collection. She added: “A lot of them will produce seeds in late summer and autumn. For example, I grew some great delphiniums and astrantias from seeds, which will perform year after year.”
How do you know when a seed is ready to be harvested?
According to Anya, the flowers should have turned brown. “Take a brown flower and just shake it and see if the seeds fall,” she said. When the seedhead opens, you should be able to see that the seeds can easily be shaken out.
Is there an easy way to collect the seeds?
Anya continued: “Put a paper bag under the seedheads and shake them or cut off the whole stem in the paper bag and hang it upside down in a cool, dark place, especially if the seeds are microscopic.
“Gardeners can put their hand under the flower after it has turned brown and gently rub the flower. When they are ready, the seeds will easily be removed.”
Separate the seeds from other debris (known as chaff) by sieving them. Some seeds benefit from being sown straight away, such as delphiniums, clematis and anemones, while others should be stored for winter or spring sowing.
When is the best time to collect seeds?
“With many plants, late summer and early autumn are the best times,” Anya continued. “This is when everything is ripening. Some plants need the whole season for their seeds to ripen. Erigeron (Mexican daisy) produces seeds on a daily basis. Yet they are quite expensive to buy.”
Foxgloves and lavender seeds should be ready to harvest, as should honesty, she added. “Honesty seed cases look like silver coins. You will see the seeds on this plant inside the papery seed cases.”
Is weather a factor?
Anya went on: “Yes. The best time to collect seeds is when it’s dry, in the middle of the day, not after rain and not in the morning because the seedheads are still damp. Collect them on a warm, dry day.”
How do you store them?
“Store them somewhere dry and cool, but you don’t have to create special conditions. I grew a whole garden from seed and stored all of them under my stairs in the house, not in special conditions.”
Ideally, store them in paper bags or something which allows air circulation, not a plastic tub with a lid, Anya recommended.
How long will they keep?
“After two years they usually start underperforming, so the rate of germination will be lower,” Anya said. “I usually start them off straight away or keep them for the next season, so I’d say they last about a year.”
Will they produce identical plants?
Anya observed that some seeds won’t come back true because many are cross-pollinated. But others, such as honesty and Lychnis coronaria, will come true to type, so you will get plants that are identical to the parents.
Are plants grown from home-harvested seed superior?
“Based on what I have done, the plants that were born in my garden from seed are more resilient, especially the ones that self-seed,” Anya said. “From the moment they have germinated they are exposed to my conditions.
“If I buy a plant that has been artificially grown somewhere, especially not in this country, and then I bring it into my garden, it might not perform as well as the one that I grew myself from seed.”
