The Cut Flower Podcast

Unlocking the Secrets of Seed Saving for Cut Flowers with Roz Chandler

• Roz Chandler • Season 1 • Episode 84

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Text Agony Aunt Roz with your Cutflower Questions.

Welcome to The Cutflower Podcast. Today, I'm excited to delve into a topic that's recently captured my fascination: seed saving for cut flowers. 

Episode Summary:

In this episode, I discuss the many benefits of seed saving, including the preservation of flower varieties, cost efficiency, and promoting sustainability. We explore different types of flowers suitable for seed saving, from open-pollinated to self-pollinating and cross-pollinating flowers. I also provide a step-by-step guide on how to save seeds effectively, from selecting the best flowers to proper storage techniques. Additionally, I address common challenges and offer practical solutions to ensure success in your seed-saving efforts.

Key Takeaways:

  1. Why Save Seeds: Understand the importance of preserving heirloom varieties, reducing costs, and promoting biodiversity by saving your own seeds.
  2. Types of Flowers for Seed Saving: Learn about open-pollinated, hybrid, self-pollinating, and cross-pollinating flowers, and how to choose the best types for beginners.
  3. Steps to Save Seeds: Follow a detailed guide on selecting, collecting, cleaning, drying, and storing seeds to ensure successful seed saving.
  4. Challenges and Solutions: Discover common challenges such as cross-pollination and disease, and how to address them with techniques like isolation and proper storage.
  5. Beginner Tips: Get practical tips for beginners, including choosing easy-to-save annual flowers like marigolds, sunflowers, and zinnias, and the importance of proper labelling and record-keeping.
  6. Isolation Methods: Explore various methods to prevent cross-pollination, such as using physical barriers, timed planting, hand pollination, and companion planting.

Sponsors: 

  • Proud sponsors of The Cutflower Podcast. Elevate your gift-giving game today at Brunchi.shop. Discover the perfect artisan gift at Brunchi.shop! From aromatherapy and candles to gemstones, jewelry, home & garden items, yoga supplies, and more, our eco-friendly treasures are sourced from around the world. Enjoy the convenience of worldwide delivery and find unique, thoughtful gifts for every occasion. 
  • This podcast episode is sponsored by First Tunnels, leaders in domestic and commercial product tunnels.  We've helped extend the growing season for gardeners big and small...whether you're growing fruit and vegetables for you and your family or commercial crops, plants and flowers. 


The Cutflower Podcast

[00:00:00] Roz Chandler: So welcome to another Solus episode and this one has come out of a real fascination recently for me in seed saving for cut flowers. Now of course we save seeds annually, we do lots of sweet peas and so on, but I thought this year, 2024, we'd be looking more seriously at it. And what got me thinking about that was that I did order some seeds from Fleurette, in the US and they are amazing and their germination rates are 95 percent and we're growing sinews and celosia and they are amazing and I'm thinking can we collect some seeds from those this coming autumn and how are we going to do that and we've talked in a previous episode about having a polytunnel and avoiding cross pollination and seeing if we can go true to the mother plant and that got me digging around and doing a lot of research and then I've spoken to a couple of flower farmers on recent podcasts.

[00:00:54] Roz Chandler: Who one saves quite a lot of seeds and it's all about, a lot of the seeds coming in will come in from overseas into the UK. And there aren't many seed suppliers who are British. Because again, we've got to go volume business and that, that's quite difficult. So it got me into talking to this flower farmers and getting interested in wondering what we could do.

[00:01:13] Roz Chandler: So I talked to the team and we've decided that maybe 2024 is our seed saving year. Why do it? Why save seeds? It's, In some respects, is it easier to go and buy the seeds again, with annuals and so on? Why do it? Of course, it's a preservation of flower varieties. Many commercial flower seeds are hybrids and they're designed for specific traits and saving seeds from open pollinated flowers ensures that heirloom and unique varieties are preserved.

[00:01:41] Roz Chandler: Going forward, it's about can we, some of our plants will go extinct if we do not collect seeds and use them. It's of course about cost efficiency. If we're buying seeds every year, it can be very expensive. And saving seeds reduces this cost and allows us to invest in other gardening needs or other varieties.

[00:02:01] Roz Chandler: If we collect certain seeds and not others. And of course it's about sustainability. So seed saving promotes biodiversity and reduces our dependence on seed suppliers. We get a more resilient gardening ecosystem if we keep our own seeds. So there's three reasons why you should save your own seeds.

[00:02:20] Roz Chandler: But I wouldn't say this is the easiest thing in the world to do. So types of flowers to save seeds from. Now this is when we get a bit more into the science. So if we look at typical flower, we've got open pollinated flowers, and these seeds produce plants that are true to type. And what I mean is their offspring will resemble the parent plant.

[00:02:41] Roz Chandler: I call it the mother. Heirloom varieties are an excellent example of these. Hybrid flowers are created by cross pollinating two different flower varieties, and hybrid seeds do not reliably produce true to type flowers. Then you've got self pollinating flowers. These are flowers like Cosmos and Zinnias and Marigolds and they tend to self pollinate making seed saving easier.

[00:03:07] Roz Chandler: So I would always say for beginners to go for easier seeds in the first instance. And then you've got cross pollinating flowers. So these are flowers like sunflowers and snapdragons that require more attention to avoid cross pollination with other varieties. So a little bit harder work. So you've got open pollinated flowers, hybrid flowers, self pollinated flowers and cross pollinated flowers.

[00:03:33] Roz Chandler: So steps to save your seeds from cut flowers. I would always say select the best flowers. Choose healthy, vigorous flowers with all the traits that you love. Tall stems, resilient, not pest, haven't been haven't had loads and loads of pests on them and they're not weakened or diseased.

[00:03:51] Roz Chandler: So select the best ones. Timing is everything when you're collecting seeds. You must allow the flower heads to mature and dry on the plant and wait until after the bloom has faded and the seed heads have formed. So you've got to be a little bit patient with this one. Collect only when the seed heads are dry, do not do it when they're wet, and cut them from the plant.

[00:04:13] Roz Chandler: Handle them really gently to avoid losing some seeds. Then you've got the cleaning and drying. Cleaning is quite, is very important. Gently crush the dried flower heads to release the seeds and remove any of the debris. And then you must dry them. Spread the seeds in a single layer on a sheet or a paper towel to dry completely.

[00:04:33] Roz Chandler: And they must be really dry to avoid mould. And then you've got to store them properly. This is probably the most important. Store them in a cool, dry and dark place. Use airtight containers like glass jars or seed envelopes. We tend to keep ours in the fridge. We have a little fridge that we bought on some marketplace and we tend to keep them in there.

[00:04:56] Roz Chandler: Make sure you label them. We felt foul of this one. With the flower type, the variety and the date of its collection. And for long term storage, consider using silicon gel packs. Those ones that you get in shoe boxes and that sort of thing you get with clothes to avoid moisture. That's definitely what you've got to avoid.

[00:05:13] Roz Chandler: So when you're successfully seed saving, you've got to isolate to maintain the purity of your seeds, ensuring that cross pollinating flowers are isolated so you can get these bags on Amazon, you can put them over the flowers if you don't, if you want them to be true to the mother. Before planting, test the seed viability by placing a few seeds in a damp paper towel and see if they're sprouting, if they're good to plant, and keep your records really detailed, including flower varieties, harvest dates, any observations about plant performance.

[00:05:46] Roz Chandler: So some of the common challenges you're going to come across. Cross pollination, of course, we talk about this a lot. Unwanted cross pollination can result in hybrid seeds that do not resemble the parent flower. Hand pollination and bagging flowers that we talked about before can help control this.

[00:06:03] Roz Chandler: Disease. Saving seeds from diseased plants can spread the disease to future crops, so you definitely don't want that. You want them from healthy plants. And storage. Ensure seeds are stored in ultimate conditions. Some additional considerations, and I mean there are lots and lots of books on Amazon. I you know, fell foul and bought one this week, which is called The Complete Guide to Saving Seeds 322 Vegetables, Herbs, Flowers, Fruits, Trees and Shrubs by Robert Goff.

[00:06:34] Roz Chandler: And it's really good because it goes through each plant. But think about things like your pollination methods. Think about your F1 hybrid seeds. They are different and not going to be true to the mother. Think about the best time to save your seeds. Think about how you're going to collect them.

[00:06:51] Roz Chandler: I think probably as a beginner I would recommend annual flowers ideal for seed saving are things like marigold, sunflowers, calendula, nasturtium, cosmos, we're going to do zinnia so follow us on our trail with that one, cornflowers, larkspurs, snapdragons, rudabecchia, and probably coneflowers. All of those are really quite good.

[00:07:18] Roz Chandler: They're not only easy, but they also attract pollinators, making them an excellent addition to your garden so you grow them anyway. And leaving some spent blooms can also provide food for the wild, so all of those are excellent at seed saving. Again, think about isolation if you want to be true to the mother plant.

[00:07:36] Roz Chandler: It's important and the ways you can do it to prevent cross pollination are things like distance, so space between lots of the plants. of the same species, so lots of distance. You're going to have to put an awful lot of distance. This requires, depending on the plant species and the main pollinators, is that bees or is it wind?

[00:07:55] Roz Chandler: What is it? It's a big ask on a plot normally. Certainly in the UK, the space requirement is hard. So Cosmos should be isolated at least 500 feet from other Cosmo varieties. It's very difficult in a normal garden and an allotment or even on a farm to get that amount between cosmos. You can use physical barriers, so row covers or mesh bags.

[00:08:19] Roz Chandler: You can use row covers or mesh bags to physically separate the flowers. And it works well for small plants or individual blooms, so things like zinnias. Cover the flowers when they're about to open to ensure that, that obviously the pollinators haven't got there before your bag has got there. Think about timed planting which might help you.

[00:08:37] Roz Chandler: Plant different varieties of the same species at different times. So that their flowering periods do not overlap, that might help you. That reduces the chance of cross pollination. Think about seasonal planting, so utilize a growing season to manage flowering times. Early or late planting can create natural isolation by time.

[00:08:56] Roz Chandler: Hand pollination is not something I've tried, but it's quite controlled. But the flowers that you particularly want to save seeds from, that you can manually pollinate from them. So you're using a small brush to transfer the pollen from the male plants to the female plants. You've got to be really into seeds for that.

[00:09:14] Roz Chandler: And use of companion planting can help you. Plant dense or tall crops between the different flower varieties to act as barriers. So use things like Phacelia as a crop, just to separate the plants, make it a little barrier and stop the cross pollination. So I think for tips for successful isolation of things like understand the pollinators, who are the pollinators.

[00:09:35] Roz Chandler: Is it bees? Is it wind? What is it that is carrying them? Watch, keep an eye on them to ensure isolation methods are effective. Adjust it if you absolutely need to. I'll go back to labeling. Clearly label isolated plants to avoid confusion. So we will be isolating ours and I will be showing you that later on in the year. And coordinate with neighbors. Let's have some seed swapping and so on and coordinate with what they're doing and what you're doing is a really good thing to do. So that's my beginner's guide to seed sowing and I have to say I've only just got into it in a big way, or we will be getting into a big way in 2024.

[00:10:09] Roz Chandler: So I hope you'll follow me over on Instagram so you can see our journey. We've planted all our zinnias up now and they've got great germination rates, so we're looking at about 400 of those at the moment. And we'll then be putting them, as soon as the tunnel arrives in July, by first tunnels, we'll be putting them into the tunnels.

[00:10:27] Roz Chandler: And we will be looking at cross pollination and the bariums and what we can do between them. So hopefully you'll be following us to learn more on seed sowing, seed saving, so that we can encourage you all to save seeds. Thank you very much for listening.