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ladyrose65

Saving Scabiosa seeds

ladyrose65
12 years ago

Due to the severe, heavy rainfalls, the Scabiosa's seeds are starting to rot on the plant. Can I cut the already spent blooms off and put them in a brown bag to ripen the seeds?

Comments (3)

  • pippi21
    12 years ago

    I'm not an expert but you should never put any seedhead in a bag wet..it will rot for sure or develop some type of fungus.
    Putting them inside a brown bag does not ripen the seeds. I have stored dried seeds in a brown bag over the winter and hung them on a nail in a shed or garage or basement If you have dried seed pods, you can dump them in a brown lunch bag, close the bag tightly and then shake the seeds loose; they will fall into the bag, then you put them in a container or baggie to save them till sowing time. Be sure to label your saved seeds by name and put a date on them.
    Hope this helps.

  • ladyrose65
    Original Author
    12 years ago

    Thanks Pippi.

  • pippi21
    12 years ago

    Last Oct. I asked a neighbor that lives behind me if I could come over and deadhead her beautiful marigolds so I could get the seeds from them. Fine, no problem! I didn't get right over to her house to gather them within the next week and I come home from church the next Sunday and found a plastic grocery bag full of dried marigold pods that she must have picked after a rain. They were wet and all mixed up, not separated by color. I had to lay those seed pods out on thick newspaper to dry and then try to pick out the yellow pods from the multi-color orange/brownish variety. It took a few days to get them dried and then I put them inside a brown lunch bag and have been using them all summer. I planted some in a large container and it was like they had a fungus/wilt, I had to water them sometimes twice a day when it was in the high 90-100's. I potted up some and then planted them and those that I planted in the ground have bushed out and are beautiful. Today I noticed that since the temperatures have been in the 80's this past week after an earthquake on Tuesday and Irene on Saturday, they have just blossomed out so much. I always thought the hotter the temperatures, the more marigolds like it. She has no idea what variety they are, the man that does her flowerbed maintence and shrub prunning buys them, plants them and she pays him. I bet she hasn't planted her own flowers in at least 10 years or more.

    I have a white scabiosa that has done well this year. I am tempted to cut it back and save the seeds but pot it up for the upcoming plant swap next Saturday. Do you think it will survive transplant? I wouldn't be considering this action if the plant was Butterfly blue.

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