Wildflower Seed
Now this doesn’t mean you can’t simply buy wildflower seed and sow it.
There’s gardeners who want to do it both ways.
Collecting Wildflower Seed
Collecting seed is a matter of being in the right place at the right time. I suggest you tuck away a few small paper envelopes with you when you go hiking or wandering the countryside. Ensure these envelopes are folded by the manufacturer so that when the main flap is pulled over, there are no holes left open for seed to escape. I once left a half day’s collecting on the floor of my car because of the holes and poor glue of a batch of bad envelopes.
Also keep a pen or pencil (pencils write when wet!) with you so you can write the name of the plant on the envelope. Trust me on this. Add several months to a single envelope and you won’t remember what kind of seed is in there.
Collect seed when it is ripe. While some seed will continue to develop and mature if taken off the plant, many will not so unless you know the plant you’re collecting, take only mature seeds. Seeds will be mature when the seed pod is dark brown, drying out and readily split (or even split already which is a major readiness sign). Put some of the seed in the envelope and spread the rest of it around to grow new plants.
Storing
Collected wildflower seeds should be stored cool and dry (the crisper of the frig is perfect) until it is time to sow them. Freezers are not generally recommended for best storage as the freezing temperatures will either kill the seed or put them into deep dormancy (and you’ll have a heck of a time waking them up.)
Germinating
There are two methods of germinating wildflower seeds. The easiest is simply to sow them outdoors when you get them home and let them come along at their own pace. As long as you don’t weed them out of your garden, you’ll be quite pleased after a few years to have your own little wildflower community.
The second system is to treat all wildflower seeds as garden perennial seeds and start them as you would any perennial garden seed
An system half way between the two is to create a small area of the garden and plunge a bottomless flower pot (cut the bottom of a pot that is at least 6 inches across) into the garden soil so that only the top one inch of the pot remains above ground. (The easiest way to do this is to dig a hole, set the pot in place and then fill the pot with the soil from the hole.)
Sterilize this soil by slowly pouring a large kettle of boiling water into the pot – or even several kettles of water to do a really fine job. The sow the seed in the pot. This will mean the seed will get the natural cold and warm cycle it expects and you’ll be able to see when it germinates rather than trying to sort it out from the weeds.
Transplanting Wildflower Seed
Transplant the seedlings in the fall after their first year of growth. (sow thinly so the seedlings have room to grow.)
Once the seeds are growing and established in the garden area, then seed collecting from these plants can be done and sown directly into the garden area to increase the numbers of plants in the area. By this time, you’ll also be able to recognize baby seedlings from baby weeds when it comes to wildflower seeds.
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