Collecting, harvesting and saving your own flower seed

A video to show you how to collect, harvest and save your own flower seed.
Hollyhock
Cosmos
Calendula
Scabious
Dill
During lockdown seeds were in short supply, and they are expensive to buy. Often we don’t even know where our seeds come from?
I would encourage you to take the time to do this. It’s free, there’ll be no mistakes with getting the wrong seed from big companies, you can select the best performing plants and flowers yourself and therefore your seed will give you the best possible outcomes.
Any questions comment below 💐

[cynthiapreston]

YOUR VIDEO is the best tutorial that I have been watching on wildflowers & so is the RELAXING NATURE OF YOUR VOICE.
(2nd is BEN Van Heem )
Your patience of the ID seed to the plant is most satisfying for me to get on and create.
TQ, TQ.❤

[allisongryski]

So interesting to learn that you can harvest them green and they will still mature while drying. I left everything to dry on the plants this last year. I harvested Nigella which has the most beautiful seed pods, some frilly poppies I found in a vacant lot, and some cosmos seeds. There was a bit of a seed exchange in a little free library in my neighbourhood this year, which was lovely. I always just let my dill go to seed within my veg patch as I love to see it randomly scattered amongst the other things.

[emmyhusfloen]

You should sell your drawn on seed packages, they are so beautiful!! Great job!

[soniatriana]

Thank you! This was a very nice & thorough tutorial! I didn’t know you could pick the flowers/seed heads off, before they had completely dried on the plant. Your garden is so colorful & beautiful!!

[HannaARTzink]

Your seed bags are adorable
And the seed presentation on a plate with dark blue flowers wad sooo endearing. Tks for inspiration, i am on my way to save the seeds!

[madamesivadgarden]

🌿💗🌿 Just discovered you and your videos last night and I’ve been watching them all and have repeated watching some....I had all my plans in tow for my spring plantings. I’ve been winter sowing since December. You’ve totally inspired me to use more containers in my little courtyard/front porch. This is a real game changer. Now I can start more batches with leftover seed. I’m looking forward to new videos. Great, great job!

[songsparrow]

Thank you SO Much!!! Most appreciated. I love your videos.

[bobmarley]

Fantastic thank you... I'll be collecting lots of wildflowers while I'm out hiking to grow... Thanks for the info very helpful and much appreciated....

[kimberly-mocp]

Love your pretty seed packets, you are very talented.

[kimberly-mocp]

I tested out seed saving on a few flowers, picking while still partially green and leaving some to mature fully. The ones picked too early never gave good results and only had a small amount of seeds compared to the fully mature dried out flower heads. For example: marigold flowers picked while still green gave no seeds, if picked when starting to go brown gave on average around 20 seeds but when left to dry fully will contain around 60 large seed sticks. Definitely worth waiting in my opinion.

[life-touchedbygrace]

this is so helpful and it really simplifies the process! thank you for sharing!!!

[annmcdonald]

Lovely informative video. I'll be starting to collect some seeds from the flowers and try out your technique.

[equinegardening]

I think you harvested the cosmos way to early, that's the reason you just had a couple of seeds from one flower. With cosmos I wait until all the petals and the yellow flower heard fell of. After that, you are able to see the seeds but they are relatively small and not ready yet. Give the seeds some time to swell and get bigger, then pick them when they change colour (from green towards brown). Sometimes I take some cosmos when the seeds are still a little bit green (when a lot of rain comes and I want to prevent mold) but never before all the petals and the yellow heart is gone. With scabiosa seeds I also wait until at least the first seeds of the seedhead turn brown. You will see when you wait longer, the seeds stay bigger in stead of shrinking during drying. (Love your channel and your garden and flower chioce btw! Just some tips on seed saving. <3)

[sperantagaina]

So lovely and very much appreciated !!

[donlussi]

I give classes on Seed Saving. I like to scour you tube for any new or unseen videos. Came across yours today. It is best to harvest the seeds when dried on the plant. If picked when green or too soon, their viability to produce drops when sowing the following year. Best to do a germination test to figure out the percentage of viable seeds you have. Otherwise the nest best thing, if you're impatient like am, is to pull up the whole plant roots and all, hang upside down to dry. All the nutrients will continue to feed the plant and by translocation, get to the drying flower by gravity. 🙂

[kristina_keefer]

I support you, thank you for sharing your experience and knowledge

[diasporagardens]

Very informative. I have never planted hollyhocks before but I will try them out and see if I could collect the seeds.

[g.l.]

Oh wow! I always thought you had to let the seed head mature and dry on the plant. Had no idea you could dead head and save them to mature off the plant!

[debbieconnelley]

Love your videos! So glad I found your channel 🌷 ps....also love your sweet little seed packets!

[anandgaurav.]

Should I let seed dry in full sun or do I need to keep it inside and dry ?