Cottage Garden Seed Swap & Chat #15

Glad to help:)

Thanks Fairy for the visiual on the Sherbert. I looke dat it and thought hummm , it different, maybe I need to see about getting some, but if you didn't like it I know I definately wouldn't.

Hibiscus are easy to collect too and a great beginner plant is Daylilies. Folks cna buy them, they very hard to kill off and folks can hybridize there own seeds too.

Amaryliss anothe rplant folks can keep for ever and harvest seed easily. And don't forget that ther eis alot of fun in collecting tree seeds too not just flower seeds. Lot sod tree collectors and growers out there. While somebody may not have many flower seeds they just might have tree seeds that folks would want to trade and some folks forget about that.

Want2bee. I just got some Phlox Perrermint Candy seeds in if ya want to try some of them.

Yah-a friend has the sherbert-and the flowers are smaller that other phlox and the colors are kinda blah-it looked in the picture kinda like a wonderful take on rainbow sherbert ice cream-not so in the flower...

Yes tcs, when it comes to separating my seeds for sowing I label the velveta cheese boxes into groups then start sorting, I love my cheese boxes along with my cheese lol I have even sent one gardener on here extra cheese boxes for them to sort them out in :)

Critter, here are some seeds easy to collect and WS:

Candylilies
Joe Pye Weed (Eupatorium maculatum)
Blackeyed Susans
Lunaria
Annual phlox
Blue flax (Linum perenne)
Red flax
Veronica
Cupid’s Dart (Catananche caerulea)
purple dome aster
New England aster
Cardinal Flower (Lobelia cardinalis)
Great Blue Lobelia (Lobelia siphilitica)
Yarrow
Bronze Fennel (Foeniculum vulgare)
Feverfew
Curly parsley
Plains Coreopsis
Canterburry Bells
Centaurea (Centaurea orientalis)
Verbena bonariensis
Toad Lily (Tricyrtis)
Common Rue (Ruta graveolens)
Balloon Flower (Platycodon grandiflorus)
Bloody Mary (Lychnis coronaria)
Ragged Robin (Lychnis flos-cuculi)
Maltese Cross (Lychnis x haageana)

I went thru my WS list ;)

WHO HAS RED FLAX-shut up!! I didn't evern know there was such a thing!!

BTW-I have perennial flax and I have NO CLUE how to get seeds from it-help me please:)

I got some of these Salvia coccinea Cherry Blosson seeds cuz the pic looked so pretty. Somebody want to explain to me exactly what a half hardy annual means. Se that what on the front of the packet.

I really appreciate all the input and suggestions! I know I could have started a separate thread, but I figured it was pretty much on-topic for us since we've been chatting about seed collecting. :-) Thanks!

I think in the "tiny seeds in pods/capsules" category, there are 2 types... flowers that have a single pod at the end of a stem (poppy, balloon flower, columbine, delphinium, hibiscus, daylily, etc.), and compound flowers that end up forming stalks with dozens of little seed capsules (basil, verbascum, veronica, lunaria, etc.).

>>WHO HAS RED FLAX-shut up!!

LOL Fairy -- I was gonna say the same thing... well, almost.
I'd LOVE red flax. I have blue flax, and yes, the seeds are very easy to collect.
*just a thought... i know i collected seeds... i certainly hope i labeled them*

and Lea -- with some of those on your lilst... geeze, some i could not even get to germinate.
**sniff** i really wanted Maltese Cross this year... and Joe Pye ... 2 yrs running and no germination. **double sniff**

Terese

Starlight, half-hardy annuals can tolerate some chilly weather but may be damaged by frost or killed by a hard freeze... think marigolds, cosmos, petunias.

Oh just happened to think too that for alot of tiny seed, and maybe somebody already said this, you can cut the stems and put the whole thing in an open paper bag and let them dry and the seed heads will open in there or ya cna shake the bag aroudn to get seeds out.

Now what always gets me is things like Ruellia and thos ethat have major exploding pods. Catching then when they have just a tiny bit of green left and putting them in tall jar or glass with piece of paper loose over top. One year had sevral types of seed pos in jar on counter to open and it sounde dlike pop gun going off and seeds was flying all over the house. Scared the bejebbies out of ya til ya figured out what was going on. LOL

Half Hardy Annual to me, means it will reseed up to certain zones. Like I'm in Zone 5 so it may or may not be hardy enough to reseed for me. Also Salvia coccinea is a perennial in zones 9 & 10 and I saw that it sometimes is perennial in zone 8 winters so it may be perennial for you! I've had some seedlings come up from the ones I had last year but most of them will not make it to flower, I think one or two might.

OK-I didn't know I can collect seed from my verbascum-please more info:)

And HELP-how do I collect seed from flas-these little tiny things are where the flower used to be, but they are TINY!!

Fairy -- I'll run out with my camera.... have to get out of my jammies first.... gimme a few min and i'll be back with some images... if i get it right.

T.

Thanks for the information. Guess I will wait til spring to try and sow these then. Want to try and get as much stuff doen now that I cna that cna get some roots and hold for overwintering in a unheated makeshift gh and survive. Not easy figuring what to do and what notto do.

There an article for somebody to write what to and when to sow for some of the different zones for fall and winter.

THANKS:)

With verbascusm, I'm pretty sure I recall that it's like Canterbury bells, with little round dried seed capsules running up the stalk where the flowers used to be. Just strip off the seed capsules (or snip off the whole stalk into a bag), and shake them or crush them to release the tiny seeds.

OK-I will have to get a paper bag while at the grocery store today and snip the whole thing-then after it dries, just shake it??

here are the flax pods still in the plant ...

i just grasp a bunch of 'stems' and slide my hand down to pull off the lil round pods

here they are in a container

Are the little seed capsules brown yet or are they still green? If they're still green, don't snip yet. You can test to see if the seeds are mature by crushing one little round "capsule" in your hand -- look for dark tiny seeds.

How you collect is up to you. I find it easier to strip the capsules and crush them in a bowl, then sift out the chaff after it's dried for a few days... but shaking in a bag would probably work too, although I'd be a little cautious about losing the seeds in the seams of the bag because they are so very tiny.

and here are the seeds after i crush the lil pods.

and yes Critter, they are brown ... seeds are dark.

[sorry a tad blurry -- the macro stinks on this camera]

Critter -- by reading your description of how to collect and extract the seeds... i do mine pretty much the same ... now i just have to separate the chaff from the seeds... which is easy enough to do.

yanno -- i just googled the "Red Flax" and peeked at the images.... Holy Cow ... i think i have those growing.
I saw a pretty lil red flower and i was gonna take a photo and ask what it was.

now i know. YAY. I will certainly be saving those seeds.

I purchased a few 'boxes' of wild flower mixes at a local garden shop .... i just sprinkled willy nilly in a few areas, so i wasn't sure what would come up and really even - what was in the box. [though i did write it down somewhere]

I'll have to go take a photo

I had to google too cuz I didn't know what Flax was. Must be somethign that doesn't grow down here or folks just don't know about cuz I have never seen it before.

read where it says it only blooms for one day on a place that selling the seed. Is that true? Doe sit get big and roudn like the picture looked?

mine, the flowers are small-ish ... and they bloomed ALL summer long. I think they were the first to bloom in the late spring -- that is what caught my eye ... the wave of pretty little flowers. I can't recall if there are still any in bloom now though... i dont think so.

I'll go look for the red ones... i think they are still blooming as those seeds were sown much later than the blue one.

I'll bring a quarter with for size comparison.

Thanks, I woudl like to see what they look like. I just hate it when I might be missing out on somethign good. LOL ; )

here is the shot with the quarter....i took a bunch more, i have to go thru them.

here is an area where i just sprinkled some seeds... the only thing in this image that i know i planted was the Brazilian Bachelor Buttons, in the lower right.

from what i can see in the image, there are Plains Coreopsis, Cosmos [orange] Blue Bachelor Buttons, mixed [pink] Bachelor buttons and some Yellow flower that i haven't taken a closer look at.

there are magenta 4-O'Clocks in the far back, along with a Rose of Sharon with White flowers.

Oh, now I want flax, too. LOL Pretty pictures, and thanks so much for sharing the seed collecting shots!

I'll remember to collect the "red" seeds in the Fall.

Flax are just stunning when grown in masses. I'll rummage thru my files and see if i can't find the Blue from this Spring/Summer.

Flax is such a delicate / ferny like plant .... very pretty.

Thansk for showing us the pictures. It is pretty and so are all your flowers. : ) If I am looking at it right it makes like one flower on each stalk or am I wrong. I like some of the feathery plants. That why I grow the coreopsis moonbeam cuz it so feathery and ya always wonder how does such a delicate looking plant hold up such flowers.

Here is a shot from May 29th. Not much in bloom at all.

i severely cropped this image to the Flax.
I have some other "before" images too that i will post.

Star -- no, there are more flowers on each stalk ... if you go back and look at the images with the seed pods, you will see many pods on one 'stem'. It may be possible that only 1 flower is in bloom on said stem at one time.. but i've honestly never noticed.

How tall does the flax get? I'm trying to limit plants around the fruit trees to flowers that stay under 2 feet... 12 inches would be better, but over 2 feet and it just gets too wild looking.

Critter.... I'd say 2' or less... maybe 18"
they sort of "weep" over though, they do not stand tall as the stems are quite thin.

here is the area, same as above, only pic taken looking south, not west, as above.

dated 7.19.08 ... about 7 weeks later.

**typo

This message was edited Sep 6, 2008 10:30 AM

thanks so much Fairy for the advice on the Sherbert, was really impressed with the picture...
But, it's good to know that it's not in real life!!! Take that one off my want list!

Starlight, would love some phlox!!!

OOO-Red flax for me please!!! I got the blue at a perennial place locally that sells perennials in 4" pots for $1 each!! And now I HAVE to have the red-PUUULEEAASSEE:)

Jill -- i was just out back again - taking more pics. and i did notice that the foliage on the Blue Flax is different from the foliage on the Red Flax.

with the way the sun is hitting them, it's hard to get good pics.

here is what i got for the Red Flax ... if you compare it to the earlier images of the Blue Flax, you will see, these are not 'feathery'.

well-isn't that weird??

Found another good 'easy picken' seed head.

Brazilian Bachelor Buttons

the stage before this had the dead/brown flower petal still on it
the stage after this, the seeds turn brown, and just fall off the head.

OK -- here's one last one [i gotta get out of this chair]

Heavenly Blue morning glory with Nicotiana, again -- more Zinnias, silky Milkweed, tall Marigolds and a smattering of other plants.