Wildlife Gardening: seed head to leave for the birds?, 0 by Equilibrium

Equilibrium wrote:
Naa, I don't question Ma Nature's decisions but I do question some of man's decisions.

Magpye, haven't you ever tried to germinate chaff before and felt like a complete idiot once you learned there was no seed left? I certainly have felt like a complete idiot trying to grow chaff as have others as a direct result of birds stripping plants clean of actual seed. I wish I could say I've only tried to germinate chaff once or twice but unfortunately I've done it quite a few times particularly with species I haven't worked with before. It's quite frustrating waiting around for chaff to germinate but it's laughable when a gardening friend comes over to look at your neatly labeled seed trays of dreams and zooms in on a particular tray and points and asks with a big smirk on their face, "Whatcha think you're growing in there". Live and learn. For what it's worth, I've also lovingly cold stratified chaff and have had gardening friends pull apart my damp paper towels to get a peek if anything is sprouting in my ziplocks only to see them reduced to fits of giggles because of birds. Chaff happens.

Take a look at this photo. There is seed in it. This is a classic example of a seed that often doesn't germinate because people don't know what part of the mix is seed and should be planted and what isn't.