how to store seeds - 4 o'clocks
Gretchen Fuller
I also live in Mass. and have collected and saved various flower seeds for
about 5 years now. Generally what I do is store them indoors in a cool dry
place in PAPER envelopes. If you store them in plastic they tend to mold.
It is also easier to write information on the paper envelope. I then either
plant them again in the spring or give them as Christmas gifts to gardening
friends.
There are also always what the Victory Garden refers to as "volunteers".
Seeds which got loose in the fall and came up on their own in the spring.
I've had bachelor buttons, cleomes, portulacas, cosmos, gallardia (sp?),
black-eyed susans, and of course the greatest reseeder of them all jonny-
jump-ups, and several others reseed themselves successfully. Some
of my other annuals which have done this have been hybrids which went back
to the specie plant. It has been interesting to see where some of them
started.
Scotti
Karen Swayze
>
> hi -
>
> we planted four o'clocks this spring. not only have they thrived and
> flowered, but they are dropping seeds like crazy. we are collecting
> them and hope to plant them next spring. my question is, how do we
> store the seeds. currently, we are keeping them inside. do we need to
> put them outside during the winter (we live in mass.)?
>
> thanks,
>
> leslie
Unless you want to plant the seeds somewhere besides where they are growing
now, there is no need to remove the seeds from the garden. It has been my
experience that nothing short of nuclear devastation, or 5-6 years of pulling
seedlings as they sprout, will rid your garden of four o'clocks once they
have seeded. If you want to plant more some place else, just take some of
the seeds from your current plants and scatter them in the new spot. Cover
them with a little dirt and forget about them. Come Spring, you will have
a second patch of four o'clocks. It really is very difficult to kill these
things.
Hope this helps,
Karen Swayze
AT&T Denver, CO
Leslie Madden
hi -
we planted four o'clocks this spring. not only have they thrived and
flowered, but they are dropping seeds like crazy. we are collecting
them and hope to plant them next spring. my question is, how do we
store the seeds. currently, we are keeping them inside. do we need to
put them outside during the winter (we live in mass.)?
thanks,
leslie
______________________________________________________________________________
"a foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds."
______________________________________________________________________________
Ronnie Falcao
at the tender age of ten years. They're a great project for kids
because they are so incredibly hardy, grow like weeds (note
below) and do produce very pretty flowers. Not to mention that
you can collect the seeds and even conduct some experiments in
genetics by storing seeds from each plant separately and noting
how the next year's flower color relates to its parent's color.
When I grew these in Maryland, they were effectively killed each
winter by the frosts. It also appears that their seeds were
killed since I never noticed any volunteers. I used to store the
seeds dry at room temperature, and they were very viable the
following spring.
Having moved to the San Jose area and having read that Four
O'Clocks are drought tolerant, I enthusiastically planted some
seeds in my garden. The first year, the showing was very poor -
only one plant made it. I pulled up the plant in the late fall
to make room for the bulbs planted around it, but I did save the
seeds for next year. However, the volunteers were sprouting from
spurious seeds in the spring even before I thought to plant the
seeds I had stored. I transplanted a number of the volunteer
seedlings around the yard and had quite a nice show of color in
the evenings and mornings. This year, the volunteers were almost
out of control.
It appears that in addition to reproducing from seeds, Four
O'Clocks become perennial plants in our temperate climate. I've
dug some up, and they appear to produce carrot-like roots which
re-grow stronger each year. (I still cut them down to the ground
in the autumn because they get kind of scraggly. Maybe this year
I'll let some go and see how long they can keep up the blooming.)
In second and third years, the plants are even stronger, growing
to bushes five feet high. The color is truly spectacular - since
my Four O'Clocks all came from the same original plant, they're
mostly a very deep fuchsia.
Unfortunately, we've found that the larger bushes topple over
late in the summer - I'm assuming they're not able to extract
enough moisture from the dry soil to maintain adequate water
pressure in the stalks. Well, they make an attractive ground
cover, too.
For people living in drought conditions, I can heartily recommend
Four O'Clocks as a great source of color in a late-summer garden.
I even invite any gardeners to come by my garden in Mountain
View, CA and pick up some seeds for themselves. (Don't worry -
there are literally gallons of mixed seeds and flower debris.
There's no shortage of seeds this year.) Just send e-mail to get
directions. I can even recommend some nearby plants in public
areas that have different colors of flowers if you want something
other than lavender or fuchsia. Our neighborhood sports a large
number of Four O'Clocks growing in unwatered areas. There are
some nice yellow flowers, and I've even seen a couple of bushes
that have white flowers with very pretty purple stripes.
(Strangely enough, there's a predominance of fuchsia bushes in
our neighborhood, but I deny any connection. :-) )
Don't worry - I did actually talk with an agricultural agent to
check that Four O'Clocks are not considered a threat to native
plants. They don't spread very rapidly, and they're easy to
control if you want.
Happy gardening,
Ronnie Falcao
Ronnie Falcao, Metaphor Computer Systems, Mountain View, CA
Internet: fal...@metaphor.com