Fact of life: ALL plant species flower in some way. Not all of them make beautiful, showy flowers, or even flowers you could identify as a “flower”. Yet, it is through flowering and pollination that plants are able to reproduce, make seeds and continue the species!

The term “perennial” usually refers to an herbaceous plant that returns year after year in your garden. Sometimes they only grow for two years, like biennials; sometimes they only last about three to five years before puttering out, like short-lived perennials; and there are some that can live for decades. Whatever kind of perennial you have, most of them are going to make seeds (those double flowers are sterile sometimes, so they don’t make viable seeds!). You may even have a few you know that seed around your garden.

Why Save Seeds and Grow Your Own Perennials?

There are a few good reasons to save your own seeds and grow your own perennials. You can save some money on plants. Many plants produce tens or hundreds of seeds at a time. Even if a percentage of them survive you can still get a lot of plants. You increase the genetic diversity of perennials in your garden and in your community. Many plants are produced vegetatively, meaning they are genetically identical, which can lead to inbreeding issues or just no seed production. By growing plants from seeds, we can make sure species continue to grow and thrive through time. Finally, it is a cheaper way to share plants with your friends, neighbors, and community!

Steps to Growing Your Own Perennials

You can collect seeds from your favorite perennials and grow completely new plants using a few simple steps.

1) Save seeds from desirable and strong plants!

Just because you love a plant doesn’t mean it will make good offspring. It is better to pick strong performers in your garden than get seeds from everything.

2) Identify where the seeds are on the plant

This might seem like the easiest step, but it can be the most complicated step! If you don’t know where the seeds are, it makes it impossible to collect them. Plants flowers can be simple or complex, and sometimes misleading. Make sure you have properly identified the species of the plants and you know where the flowers are and where the seeds form in the flowers.

3) Collect at the right time

Where the seeds are on the plant will indicate to you when you should let the seeds ripen more and when they can be harvested. Some seeds are found in fruits and some are inside dry vegetative material. In the case of fruits, you may need to leave the fruit on the vine longer than you would if you were eating it. When you are dealing with dry seeds, it is best to let the vegetative parts turn slightly brown before cutting them. It is best to put these in a paper bag to continue drying completely.

4) Clean the seeds

What kind of fruit or dried material will tell you how to clean the seeds most efficiently. Fruit may need to be fermented to help with cleaning and to also break dormancy (see “Treat” section). Dry seeds that have been allowed to dry completely in paper bags can usually be shaken out of their seed pods and run through cleaning screens for quick processing.

5) “Treat” the seeds

Every species has different seed dormancy needs. Many of our worst weeds are weeds because their seeds do not have complicated seed germination needs. Some of our favorite and most beautiful plants can have complicated processes for breaking seed dormancy, making them hard to propagate and expensive to purchase. Understanding a species’ needs will help you determine if the seeds need to be stratified, scarified, both or have nothing done to them at all (see references below to understand what these words mean!).

6) Cultivate the seedlings

Once you’ve gotten the seed treated, you need to have somewhere to grow them. Seedlings need special seed mix media to grow in during their early stages because their roots are delicate if you are not directly sowing them into your garden (which can reduce survivability!). They may need more moisture, less harsh light and good air movement to reduce damping off disease.

7) Plant in your garden or give them away!

Amanda Bratcher is the Horticulture Agent for North Carolina Cooperative Extension in Lee County.