Seed Saving Season

It’s fall in the Mid-Atlantic zone 7a, the temperature has dropped about 20 degrees in the past week, and for me this is the time to start saving seeds for my garden next year and for sharing with other gardeners and friends.

What to save

When I grow flowers that I really like, saving the seeds allows me to grow the plants again next year without spending money buying seeds over the winter. One flower I love growing are zinnias. They are really colorful in the yard, come in so many varieties, attract butterflies and make beautiful bouquets throughout the summer and early fall. They are really easy to direct sow in the spring. If you have a sunny spot in your yard, give zinnias a try!

This year I tried four new varieties-Button box, Green Envy, State Fair and Benary’s giant purple.

Clockwise: Green Envy zinnia, Benary's giant purple zinnia, state fair zinnia, marigold 

I keep it simple. Zinnia and marigold seeds are really easy to harvest because the seeds are so large. If you have a flower in your yard that you love, do some research to learn the best way to harvest the seeds for next season. Some flowers have really tiny seeds that take a little more care to harvest, but it’s worth trying if it’s a plant you really like.

How to harvest seeds

In order to harvest flower seeds, you have to let the flower die on the plant. I know, it’s kind of ugly, especially in the middle of the summer then the zinnias and marigold are looking their best, bursting with new flowers. That is why I wait until this time of year, when the plants are starting to get leggy and are starting to die. Let the flowers die on the plant until they are completely dried out and crunchy. It has been really rainy here so I have left the flowers on the plants for them to completely dry out. You don’t want mold growing on the seeds.

Here is a short video I made with the basics of saving zinnia and marigold seeds.

Sometimes the birds will eat the flower petals, see the photos, but I am okay with that. I am happy to be a food source for the goldfinches – they LOVE zinnia flower petals. I see them all summer flitting in and out of the beds.

A warning, though; if you have an unexpected hard frost that kills the plants, your seed-saving will be impacted. This happened to me last year. The flowers were zapped overnight by frost so they did not have a chance to die naturally and develop seeds. This spring I only had a handful of zinnia seeds available.

Storing and sharing

Be careful to mark the seeds you are saving and keep them separated. I have many varieties of zinnias this year. When the flowers are dead, it can be hard to tell what is what. And the seeds all look exactly the same! One year, I left the some trays holding the seeds out on the patio and stiff wind came up and blow they all over the place. Second lesson learned – bring the dead flower pods inside.

#Bloomday April 2018

It's #Bloomday and I am so glad there are things blooming in the yard now. Below is Veronica-Georgia Blue, and lush purple-flowered ground cover that is green all summer and fall, wild violets that started appearing in my yard a couple of years ago and forsythia which has been loving the cool spring here in Washington, D.C.

Top: Veronica-Georgia Blue; Left: violet; Right: forsythia

What's blooming in your garden today?

#WorldPhotoDay

Lots of bees in the yard today. This is celosia, in the amaranth family.

Today is #WorldPhotoDay. Check out the website for more info.

June 15 is #BloomDay

June 15 is Garden Blogger' Bloom Day. What's blooming in your garden today?

Not much here, near Washington, DC! I feel like the flowers are in transition - spring blooms are long gone and the summer plants are just maturing. But I have a couple of bits of color.

Purple yarrow is looking good. I planted this for the first time last year. It likes the hot dry front yard.

One of my favorites, purple coneflowers. I started these plants from seed last year and it's doing great. Almost 5 1/2 feet tall and still growing! This will bloom all summer. That's catmint and coreopsis fading in the background.

Attracting Beneficial Pollinators

Starting Milkweed From Seed

Here’s the progress of the milkweed I started from seed a few weeks ago. I got the seeds at Washington Gardner’s Seed Swap Day on January 28, at Brookside Gardens in Maryland. I put the seeds (the fuzzy white things pictured lower right) in the fridge for four weeks (that’s called stratification, not to be confused with scarification) as instructed. 

Back in early April, reusing a cupcake container from Safeway, I punched a few drainage holes in the bottom, put them in seed-starting mix, found a warm spot in the house and hoped for the best. My friend Jen told me it took milkweed two years to germinate in her yard so I did not have high hopes. But a few weeks later, I had my first sprout! And then many days later, another sprout. I think these seven seedlings have been coming over the past few weeks. They definitely did not all sprout at the same time and I hope to get one or two more before I put them in the ground later in May in a sunny flower bed where I also grow Black-eyed Susan.

The zinnias I plant every year attract butterflies and Goldfinches, too. I look forward to seeing a few more butterflies in my Hyattsville gardens this summer.

Create Habitat for Monarchs in Your Garden

According to the Monarch Joint Venture, Monarch butterflies cannot survive without milkweed; their caterpillars only eat milkweed plants (Asclepias spp.), and monarch butterflies need milkweed to lay their eggs. With shifting land management practices, we have lost much milkweed from the landscape. Planting milkweed is a great way to help other pollinators too, as they provide valuable nectar resources to a diverse suite of bees and butterflies.

Get Ready for National Pollinator Week in June

What can you do for pollinators?
There’s a lot here, just choose one that’s doable to get started this year.

•  Create a pollinator-friendly garden habitat in just a few simple steps.

• Design your garden so that there is a continuous succession of plants flowering from spring through fall. Check for the species or cultivars best suited to your area and gradually replace lawn grass with flower beds.
  
• Plant native to your region using plants that provide nectar for adults plus food for insect larvae, such as milkweed for monarchs.  If you do use non-native plants, choose ones that don't spread easily, since these could become invasive.
  
• Select old-fashioned varieties of flowers whenever possible because breeding has caused some modern blooms to lose their fragrance and/or the nectar/pollen needed to attract and feed pollinators.
  
• Install 'houses' for bats and native bees. For example, use wood blocks with holes or small open patches of mud. As little as 12” across is sufficient for some bees.
  
• Avoid pesticides, even so-called "natural" ones such as Bacillus thuringiensis (Bt). If you must use them, use the most selective and least toxic ones and apply them at night when most pollinators aren't active.
  
• Supply water for all wildlife. A dripping faucet or a suspended milk carton with a pinhole in the bottom is sufficient for some insects. Other wildlife need a small container of water.
  
• Provide water for butterflies without letting it become a mosquito breeding area. Refill containers daily or bury a shallow plant saucer to its rim in a sunny area, fill it with coarse pine bark or stones and fill to overflowing with water. 
  
• Share fun facts, such as: a tiny fly (a “midge”) no bigger than a pinhead is responsible for the world's supply of chocolate; or one out of every three mouthfuls of food we eat is delivered to us by pollinators.

More Information

Pollinator Partnership 

2017 Green Matters Symposium, Montgomery County, Maryland

Twelve Native Milkweeds for Monarchs, National Wildlife Federation

"Why planting milkweed won’t halt monarch butterfly decline" (Washington Post, March 18, 2017)