Collect Aquilegia (columbine, granny's bonnets) seed now for a marvellous display in 2 years time!

I'm busy collecting seeds from my aquilegias....Problem is the rain makes collecting times few and far between as you need dry pods to collect from. I collect into plastic drinking cups or larger containers, and leave until the pods are really dry before removing the seeds, cleaning them of dust and chaff and packeting them. I usually sow the collected seeds next January to March, and they will flower the next May. The photo shows 3 stages of this process. At the bottom is a small insert of a ripe seedpod, wait until they start to turn brown and open naturally to show the (usually) black seeds. Bottom left is small seedlings in nursery rows in my garden (Touchwood) in May from a February sowing. The rest of the photo is the magnificent blooming of the previous year's nursery rows: gay profusion in a range of colours with heights ranging from about 2 and a half foot to 4' (70cms to 130cms).

 

Any spares kindly appreciated http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/2012-seed-swap.43982/

 

Do you know whether seed will come true from these? I have a tiny yellow/red one which comes up every year, and I have some lovely colours this year from a packet of McKana hybrids. They flowered last year, and this year I have some very pretty colours still but I would like more of the blue/white one. The ones which come up naturally are pinks, purples and maroon singles and doubles, very pretty but I do like a bit of variety.
I always deadhead the ones I like best to prolong flowering- do you think this works?

 

The plants that you got the seeds from will come again next year true, the seed however from that same plant may be a variation, depending on how it was pollinated , bees going from plant to plant will spread the pollen to each and you will get some beautiful variations
Any deadheading will prolong flowering as all plants needs to produce seed and will keep trying to,

 

Carrie next time i am over your side of Swansea i will call in and be envious over your collection

 

I collected my seeds today and sowed them this afternoon. From my experiance Aquilegia never come true from seed. To be honest, thats what i like as you never know what your going to get

 

Deadheading will keep them flowering but the flowers become smaller and smaller on shorter & shorter stems, and the plants are weakened, i believe i killed a pink & white 15yo A. vulgaris by doing that one year.....kept it flowering into august i think. Never tried with McKana types, must say they don't tend to set much seed for me anyway, assume lack of pollinators with long enough tongues (though seed-set on yellow A. chrysantha is usually good).
Additionally, the special ones you are deadheading are EXACTLY the ones you want to encourage to set seed and grow on to see if you can get any similar offspring.

What works for me is this......you will notice that flowers are produced at the top of each stem and this flower flowers first, followed by the two flowers on the two side-stems beneath it (so they grow in 3s). Generally, I allow the top/first flower on the stem to set seed and then remove any set seed-heads on the two below them to keep the vigour in the plant so they dont 'flower (or rather seed-) themselves to death. Course if there's poor seed-set (many of my 'complicated' ones) then i dont bother to remove the 'extra' seeds. Hope you find these comments at least of interest if not actually helpful! Carrie

 

Looking forward to it...when the aquilegias flower again...! Meanwhile watch on S4C 9pm this wednesday when Byw yn yr ardd will be featureing 4-6 mins on Touchwood aquilegias!

 

i will have programmed it to record already in case i forget hope its got subtitles otherwise just enjoy the shots

 

I'll got some spare Red Hobbit seeds if anyone needs them

 

http://gardenerscorner.co.uk/forum/threads/seed-swap.43928/

Hi Intel i am drawing your attention to our seed swop forum ,or if you don`t want to join but would like to contribute P.M. me and I will send you my address

 

AarrgghhhI have Aqueligias and I`ve just been dead-heading them and throwing the bits away.

I shall endeavour to collect the seeds now.

 

OMG. I didn't realize there were so many varieties. I may just have to order some from you Carrie..... if I can make my mind up!!!

 

I have mostly the "barlow" type seeds i got from a seed swop 2/3 years ago

 

Good luck quitting smoking Pam