Ep 190. Encouraging Self-Seeding and Seeding Love

Mary Stone shares the methods and importance of encouraging self-seeding to help wildlife. And reflects on the joy of seed catalog shopping and creating a vision board for your garden. The episode concludes with a reflection on Martin Luther King Jr Day, honoring his wisdom that "Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend." Let us all do our part by self-seeding love.

Thanks for tuning in!

Related Posts and Podcasts you'll enjoy:

Encouraging Self-Seeding - Blog Post
Spring Urges Satisfied by Seed Shopping - Blog Post

Seeds Rooted in Love - Blog Post
Ep 114. We are all Seeds Rooted in Love

Coretta Scott King Forest - Blog Post
Ep 40. The Coretta Scott King Forest

Ep 125. Late-Season Bloomers-Glorious Goldenrod


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I'd love to hear your garden and nature stories and your thoughts about topics for future podcast episodes. You can email me at AskMaryStone@gmail.com.

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Mary Stone, Columnist & Garden Designer
                                        AskMaryStone.com

More about the Podcast and Column:

Welcome to Garden Dilemmas, Delights, and Discoveries.

It's not only about gardens; it's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learned from mother nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So, let's jump in in the spirit of learning from each other. We have lots to talk about.

Thanks for tuning in, Mary Stone
Garden Dilemmas? AskMaryStone.com
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Transcript

Ep 190. Encouraging Self-Seeding and Seeding Love
Sat, Jan 18, 2025 11:10AM • 12:53
SUMMARY KEYWORDS
African Violets, fuzzy leaves, self-seeding, seed shopping, winter garden, invasive butterfly bush, Goldenrod, seed heads, beneficial insects, seed catalogs, vision board, Martin Luther King, love and peace, positive changes, garden dilemmas
SPEAKERS
Mary Stone

Mary Stone  00:00
Mary, Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. I'm Mary Stone, and welcome to garden dilemmas, delights and discoveries. It's not only about gardens. It's about nature's inspirations, about grasping the glories of the world around us, gathering what we learn from Mother Nature, and carrying these lessons into our garden of life. So let's jump in, in the spirit of learning from each other, we have lots to talk about.

Mary Stone  00:26
 Hello there. It's Mary Stone, and we're back to a deep freeze. And I'm back on the screen porch after our last episode, recorded inside during the big winds. Thanks to those who reached back about our previous episode, African Violet Care Frozen in Time. Many of you giggled about Jolie's antics with my mother's African violets, and Samantha asked, why are the leaves on African Violets fuzzy? Maybe that's why I adore them. I'm a fan of fuzzy leaves. The fuzz offers protection as it deters insects from nibbling their fur coat, helps them regulate temperatures and moisture loss as well, plus it helps prevent water damage on the leaves. So there you go. It's fascinating how plants and animals have evolved. Thank you. Joyce, the African Violet expert who answered my query, I have renewed enthusiasm for growing African violets. I am so excited about that because I was losing faith. Let us never lose faith. So on to this week's story about self-seeding and seed shopping using what I call seed drooling devices. And it starts like this.

Mary Stone  01:40
Hello, fellow lovers of all things green. Over the weekend, we had a dusting of snow. I enjoyed meandering the property and observing the beauty of the winter world. In Mary fashion, I didn't do all of the fall tune-up in the garden that I usually do, although I did tend to the things that were most vital, such as cutting back the invasive butterfly bush that has self-seeded where the hemlocks once were. I am trying to eliminate the population and encourage native golden rod to take over instead, such as Solidago caesia, which serves as a host plant for over 125 species of butterflies and moths and it's a nectar plant. The flowers provide food for butterflies. Yes, it is true that Goldenrod is opportunistic, as we spoke about in episode 125, Late Season Bloomers - Glorious Golden Rod. But can we have too much of a good thing? Just give it room to grow or harvest some of the volunteers and share them with others, spreading the goodness, which makes me think of a long-ago story about self-seeding. 

Mary Stone  02:49
My rock garden is stock full of dry perennials remaining. It has nothing to do with being lazy or too busy tending to others' gardens leaving little time for my own. Leaving seed heads on your dormant perennials over winter will encourage many plants to spread, plus it provides a habitat for beneficial insect larvae and food for wildlife. John from Bangor, Pennsylvania, asks if there's a way to encourage self-seeding. Yes, indeed, there is. If you want to foster seedlings, don't deadhead, which means cutting back the spent flowers, and don't use Preen, which is a pre-emergent or Weed Preventer, and don't mulch heavily. Yay, another reason not to mulch. Giving your seeds a hand self-seeding sounds like an oxymoron, a quirky word for an expression using words with opposite meanings doesn't self-seeding mean not to intervene. Nonetheless, I am all for helping good things along. 

Mary Stone  03:52
While roaming the property after the light snow on Saturday, I came upon a baby white pine. It gave me such a chuckle because I don't have any mother white pines nearby. So I marveled over the find the baby tree planted itself in the rock garden where it will not live to be a big tree, so I will move the little guy come Spring. And it occurs to me, as I'm sitting with you, that I have used pine cones as decorations in my window boxes that I gather from the library parking lot, so likely a seed found its way into the garden. Just as oak trees drop acorns, and thanks to the squirrels, they bury them into places and forget where they put them. And so trees sprout in unexpected places. 

Mary Stone  04:38
Self-seeding occurs best in soil that is loose and crumbly on the surface. So John, what you can do is help self-seeding along by scratching the surface with a garden rake and broadcast seeds before the ground freezes, or simply lay the dead heads on the naked soil and let Mother Nature do her part. That is my strategy. Call me lazy. It's also fun to collect seeds and start plants come Spring, but leave some if you don't mind, even if you aren't particularly interested in encouraging self-seeding, birds will be grateful if you leave dry flower heads. 

Mary Stone  05:14
There are oodles of flowers that produce seeds to temp birds. A few popular ones are asters, black-eyed Susans, coneflowers, coreopsis, Cosmos, daisies, golden rod, Marigold, sedums, sunflowers, my favorite, and Zinnias. During the growing season, deadheading spent blooms encourages new flowers as the plant will continue to push out blooms rather than put energy into making seeds. But as your season wraps up, let those seed heads dry so we can encourage self-seeding and drop the spent heads where you want more plants. It's such fun, and it's true, while some of the dormant plants are neither particularly good self-seeders nor considered interesting in the Winter Garden, beauty is in the eye of the beholder, plus there are hungry birds to feed. Garden dilemmas, AskMaryStone.com. 

Mary Stone  06:12
 In the post, I have a photo of a dry Rudbeckia, which is Black Eyed Susan lying on the snow, flat as can be. I think it's lovely to look at, but others may not think so. So those of you that prefer a more neat and tidy garden, you can pick and choose, I suppose. But think of our feathered friends and the kind insects that pollinate our gardens each year. Speaking of self-seeding, I enjoy receiving fun garden trivia or cartoons from Anita. A while ago, she sent me one that turned into a story, and I look forward to sharing. 

Mary Stone  06:50
Seems timely. Anita wrote from Blairstown, New Jersey in her email I received with a rose is Rose cartoon, a Syndicated Comic Strip by Pat Brady. It starts with a woman dressed in garden clothes and a wide-brimmed hat adorned with a pink bow. She's on her knees up to her garden gloved, elbows in dirt. The surrounding grass is spring green, and the subsequent panels of the comic strip are bubbles of her thoughts. I'd love to quote here, but in the spirit of honoring copyrights, I'll summarize her adoration of the fertile soil. She holds soil ready for the plentiful seed she has to plant. She's anxious to see the tiny sprouts that will come soon after and watch them grow towards the sun. She brings the clump of soil balled in her hands towards her heart in gratitude for witnessing the miracle of Mother Nature. 

Mary Stone  07:47
Then comes a dialog bubble. Mama, her son, shows up in the next panel, and the scene changes to snow. Both Rose and her son are in their winter woolies, scarves and hats. Rose's clump of soil is now a ball of snow. Her son nags that he thought they were building a snowman together, breaking Rose's joyful spell of dreaming of Spring. The ending panel sentiment declares a gardener's urges are not curtailed by seasons or circumstances. So true, though. I'll admit I enjoy the break from gardening, which correlates with my love of playing in the snow. The comic strip recalls the joy of seed catalog shopping sitting in front of the fireplace. I wrote a story about seed drooling devices. I think I have time to share a bit of it. 

Mary Stone  08:41
I talk about my card-playing strategy of cutting photos of desired plants, considering the space, of course, and the garden you wish to fill. And I place the cutouts on the table, then shift them around. It's like a game of solitaire, and why not combine vegetables and herbs and flowering plants? It's a delightful assortment of colors and textures. But be aware that companion plants you dream about need to be appropriate for the same cultural environment, such as sun versus shade, preference for moist versus dry, feet, roots, that is. And imagine how they will look and grow in the garden come Spring, and how they will sprout and reach for the sun, relishing the miracles of Mother Nature. Of course, paper catalogs are scarce nowadays as online shopping has taken root. But you can do the same game of solitaire if you're savvy, on the computer by taking screenshots of the plants you like to include in your garden. I have the print screen button on my laptop and then paste them in a Word document or whatever word processing app you use. It's kind of like making a vision board, which is fun to do the things you dream about, right? You can dream about your garden or print the screenshots once you crop them to the plant image and play cards. It's such fun. Indeed, gardeners' impulses can be satisfied by seed chopping. But for now, enjoy the long shadows cast by the glorious sun on our frozen landscape. 

Mary Stone  10:15
I'd like to close with a reflection on Martin Luther King's birthday, which is today, the day I am recording, January 15, although Martin Luther King Jr Day will be celebrated on Monday, which is also Inauguration Day, when the United States makes a transition of presidents, while the world is in transition, some would say, turmoil. I love the sentiment that Martin Luther King Jr. said: Love is the only force capable of transforming an enemy into a friend. So let's do our part of self-seeding love; even if we don't agree with political candidates or those elected to office or if we don't believe in religion or countries' philosophies, we are not here to judge others. We are here to live in peace, which is our nature. 

Mary Stone  11:05
Positive changes come with feelings and actions of love, acceptance, kindness, and tolerance, or we can change negatively by resenting or, hating and judging others. Hate perpetuates hate. No doubt, awful things are going on; the wildfires in California are getting better now, and gratefully, many folks are returning to their homes, but there are folks that have lost homes too, the wars that humankind engages in, but if more of us love change positively, will grow exponentially in our world. I know that is true. 

Mary Stone  11:44
So, thanks for coming by. I am totally frozen. My hands are literally frozen, but I'm out on the screen porch again, and I'm grateful for that, and I'm grateful for you joining me as you do each week. I hope you have enjoyed the podcast, and if so, please share it with a friend. And if you have not given us a five-star review yet, I would so appreciate it if you are so inclined because for some magical reason, the more of those we have, the more will find us and learn and grow in the garden of life. Here's to peace and love and positive changes. See you next time on the screen porch. 

Mary Stone  12:23
You can follow Garden Dilemmas on Facebook or online at Garden Dilemmas.com and on Instagram at hashtag Mary Elaine Stone. Garden Dilemmas Delights and Discoveries is produced by Alex Bartling. Thanks for coming by. I look forward to chatting again from my screen porch and always remember to embrace the unexpected in this garden of life. Have a great day.