Today I’m going to take you on a seed harvesting adventure. Once you’ve gathered your scissors and a paper bag, it’s time to begin.
The first thing we’ll do on our seed harvesting adventure is look at the stalk leading up to the dead flower. If it’s brown looking and shriveled, the plant is saying, “I’m done sending nutrients to the seeds, they are ready to do their own thing now.”
Dead and shriveled stalk to the seed head.
Now, shake the seedhead. Do you hear anything? Rattling, perhaps?
I didn’t hear any rattling with these seedpods. And sure enough, no seeds inside. But remember, not all seedheads will make noise.
I also look closely with my eyes. Sometimes you can actually see the seeds from the outside!
I see some darker areas on the seedheads, they look like they could be seeds!
But the only way to know for sure if there are seeds, is to use your hands to gently pull apart the seedhead. Seeds are typically black or brown, sometimes reddish, and usually hard. Like tiny dark pebbles.
There are seeds inside!
Sometimes it’s hard to tell if there are any seeds, even when using all your clues. In this case, use your best guess! If you’re super excited to save the seeds, why not go ahead and save the whole seedhead to see what grows? Gardening is an ongoing experiment, after all.
It looks like the freeze got to these flowers before they could make seeds. There may be one or two seeds, it’s hard to tell.
Other times it’s very easy to tell if there are seeds! Maybe all you do is blow on the seed head, and poof! A million seeds fly out into the air around you. Plants have all sorts of ingenious methods of moving their offspring to other places to grow.
Tiny seeds attached to fluffy tufts on my thumb.
Once you’ve discovered the seeds, how many do you take? If you’re collecting seeds from your own garden, as many as you want! Or maybe leave half to allow the garden to grow on its own. But if you’re collecting seeds from someone else’s yard, take no more than 1/3 of the seeds. That way, if you never come back around to check on the plants, you know in your heart that you left enough seeds for nature to keep growing as it pleases.
What seeds have you discovered this year?
Sarah Armanovs is the Gardens Manager at The Arboretum at Flagstaff.
