It stands to reason that you would want to leave seeds on the mother plant until they are fully ripened but does anyone know if they will ripen on a cut stem? I have two stems with *almost* ripe seeds and we are expecting some strong winds tomorrow. I would like to cut the stems off and bring them into the house so I don't lose the seeds. They are about 90% brown at this time and they are starting to get pretty loose in the pods. I am afraid they will blow to the next county if I leave them out there.
Guess I don't have much to lose but any insight will be appreciated.
Lotus seeds
Leave 'em be. Or at least leave one and see what happens. It takes a heck of a lot of force to knock them out of the pod. I've had some ripened seed stay in a ripened pod after it spent a year in the compost bin! Even then I had to force them out.
I lost a few thanks to hurricane Fay and it didn't even come near us but the outer bands did. When I checked after the storm the pods were there but the seeds weren't. I live on an island and there are hurricanes threatening; I am not talking about run of the mill wind but a really big blow. Bagging the pods won't help either as they will get whipped around pretty darn hard.
Oh my! I have no expertise in combating hurricaine force winds. I sure wish you didn't have to go through it. The only other thing I can think of is to temporarily submerge the whole plant until the storm blows through and quickly getting them up again. Otherwise just to cut them and store them until you can get them out in the sun to finish drying sounds like the best option. In any event, I hope seed ripening is the most serious problem this hurricaine season brings you.