Scuba_Dave

Lately I keep an eye out for seeds on Japanese Maples
If I find any I take some, trying to start from seed at home
I took 4 small seedlings from MIL's house - they didn't survive
Probably too small

I also collect Marigold seeds from dead flowers
I very rarely buy any
One year I had over 100 marigold plants around the gardens

I grab a sunflower every year & save the seeds
I plant the seeds the following year
This year has been a bad year - too much rain
Some of my sunflowers are only 1' tall & starting to form their flower

I also collect seeds from my own plants & try them in different areas
When I'm at friends houses I collect seeds from their plants
NIce way to save $$ & collect plants

Jack Daw

My friend went to Central America about 2 years ago. I grow lots of their tomato cultivars since then.

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

Patty in Wisc

I save seeds all the time. Even in MX I took seeds from unusual trees & plants there.

__________________
Got a lite?
Patty




____
Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

Jack Daw

I maybe forgot to mention (as it is native to your area but not mine), I also have tree seeds and plants from USA specifically, mostly Sequoias and Sequoiadendrons. It never gets here that frosty as their maximal hardiness, so I guess it should be fine...

__________________
Thnx to Marcel, Ante, Dr. Chiranjit Parmar and Francesco for the plants I've received.



Zeitgeist - Corporatocracy 101 (~2hrs)

Zeitgeist - Moving Forward (~2.5hrs)

island cassie

Dave - you must be my soulmate!!! I collect seed everywhere I go and pass some on to friends who have never thought of doing so - cuttings and clippings and bits to be rooted - my life's work kinda like a modern day Johnny Appleseed!! The thrill of growing something that has not come out of a commercial packet cannot be surpassed. Atm I have about 30 seedlings of Barbados Pride of various colours collected locally germinating. The only problem is the space to grow all these gems on to a good size. Go seedsavers of the world!!!

lorax

Me too! I pull seed off of the trees in the parks, out of public flowerbeds, at the markets (saved from the fruits) and whenever I see interesting ones in the jungle. Also cuttings from the jungles and occasionally other peoples' gardens (with permission, always.) I have a little bit of everywhere that I've been, and most things I've eaten.

island cassie

So much great free stuff available - I can't understand why we are so few liberating the seeds.

Patty in Wisc

Oh yeah, plant cuttings too. I stayed at a nice place in FL with all kinds of cool plants & flowers around the pool, so at night when no one was there, I snipped a bunch of stuff & stuffed them under my T shirt. While waiting for the elevator, the security guard walked over to chat. Getting on elevator he had a big smile on & said g'nite. Walked into my unit past a big mirror & I had leaves hanging out of my T shirt LOL. That's what the security guy was smiling about....how embarrassing!

__________________
Got a lite?
Patty




____
Patty in Wisc has sadly passed away 9/05/11. We will miss you Patty.

Richard

Taking cuttings is an innocent activity in most places which I've also been known to do. Hopefully Wisconsin has not been infected by any of the several nasty pests currently under quarantine in Florida.

__________________
Back in business at plantsthatproduce.com

john_ny

Over the years, I have collected many seeds, from my own and other plants.
I have tried to make some lists here, of those that were good, not so good, and bad.
In the poor category, of temperate plants, I would include most annual flowers. I once had some beautiful marigolds, with large flowers, on stocky plants. When I saved the seeds, I got tiny plain yellow flowers on gangly plants. With impatiens, you get less and less different colors each year and, after a few years, everything is, basically, just a washed out pink. Vegetables, unless open pollinated, are like this also. Temperate fruit trees are generally not good to grow from seed. Example: if you get a big juicy peach, the peach has the characteristics of the female parent, (the tree that it was picked from) but the pit has the characteristics of the female parent AND the male parent (the pollinator), and you might end up with a tree that produces hard little green fruit.

Some temperate plants that I consider mediocre (for reasons shown) are azaleas and rhododendron: produce reasonable plants and flowers, but seed is very small, so emerging seedlings are small, and take a long time to make a decent sized plant. figs: pretty much the same thing (small seed = small seedlings) roses: most seedlings are inferior to parents. I once got one that had about twice as many petals as normal, (a little pom pom) but the rest were like some sinle petaled things you could find in the wild.

Some temperate trees/shrubs that I call pretty good (come reasonably true to type, and grow at a reasonable rate.) are: Japanese maple (Acer palmatum) We have a 250 year old cemetery nearby where they had allowed us to gather seeds. One year, I went over there, with several helpers, and we filled three 5-gallon taping compound buckets. Yield, that year, was 150 thousand seedlings. When grown from seed, there is a lot of variation; some big leaves, some small, some sooth edge, some serrated, some green, and all different shades of red and gold but all are, basically, saleable trees. Some other maples, like sugar, and Norway, also come good from seed. However, if you plant seed from a red Norway maple, you'll get green seedlings.
Cornus floridae (dogwood), and Cornus kousa (kousa dogwood; blooms a month later than C. floridae) work good from seeds. Sometimes, with the white C. Floridae, you'll get a tinge of pink, but that's acceptable.
Some other temperate trees are: crape myrtle, various magnolias, walnut, hazelnut (filbert), birch, pine, arborvitae.

Some of the above require stratification (cold treatment), others do not.

In tropicals, my mediocre choices are: pineapple; there are better ways to propagate it, but it can be done from seed. However, it takes forever. At about 15 months, the plant is only about 3"w X3"h. Kiwi; again, small seed = long time. Mango; very pretty reddish seedling but, in a few years, becomes too big.

My better choices, in tropicals, are: mandevilla; I only get seeds, every couple of years but, when I do, there are lots and they grow at a reasonable rate. Iris; some kind of iris (I think it's Afreican) I find the seeds, in Florida, in Sept. Allamanda, Oleander, Lychee, Papaya, Passionfruit; I grew some of these, from seed to ripe fruit, in 10 months. Guava, Jatropha, Thevetia, Crinum; a lily-like thing that gets huge (strap leaves, over 3 feet long, and 5 inches wide, at the base), and the "seeds" appear, at the stem tips, after the flowers, are more like bulbs, or bulblets, sometimes more than an inch across. Various palms, Schefflera (arboricola); If you use seeds from a variegated one, you'll get grren seedlings. Shell ginger, variegated shell ginger; almost all of the variegated seed gave me plants with pretty good variegation.

Cuttings: Most places, if you ask, will let you take a few cuttings. Of course, if you're at a hotel on the day that landscapers are doing trimming, you've hit the jackpot I, once, asked a landscaper, at a Florida hotel, (he was doing weed control that day-not pruning) If I could take some cuttings from some of the Hibiscas they had. I explained to him that I knew what I was doing, and wouldn't destroy the bush; only take tips that were going to need to be pruned soon, anyway. He told me, "They wouldn't care, if you cut that thing down to a nub."

__________________
John

CValentine

John_ny,

I found this VERY interesting.

Do canna lilies do well from seed?

Thanks for the GREAT information! ~Cheryl

__________________
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

john_ny

Sorry, Cheryl,
Never tried that, but I'm quite sure there are others, on the board, who have. Guessing, I'd think it would be pretty similar to bananas.

__________________
John

Dalmatiansoap

Hahaha, looks like we are all more or less same!

__________________
https://abnb.me/AXJty518xib

Scuba_Dave

I have over 100 hibiscus trees growing on my 1/2 acre
And probably 2-300 seedlings as they drop seeds & just keep growing

john_ny

Dave I would assume, when you say that you have all these plants growing on your property, that you are talking about Hibiscus Syriacus, Rose of Sharon. I have these also, and the seedlings that pop up all over, are a good example of what I was trying to say about the peach not coming true from the seed although, in this case, it may be for the good. When I moved here, there was one of these on the property; kind of a medium pink. When I allowed some of the seedlings to get big enough to flower, they were in all colors; pink, lavender, white, some plain, some with red throats, even some striped ones.

The plants I was refering to, at the hotel, in Florida, were the tropical ones, H. rosa sinensis.

__________________
John

CValentine

Wow Dave!!!

I LOVE Hibiscus too! I bought 3 new varieties today.
The lady there was watering & grooming the crepe myrtles & there was a seedling about an inch & a half tall I asked her if I could have it...she said, 'Sure.' She was just going to trash it. It is the 'Candy Cane' crepe myrtle...very pretty!

Yay!!! for being at the right place, right time! ~Cheryl

__________________
When the power of love overcomes the love of power, the world will know peace. - Jimi Hendrix

musaboru

Well, the last thing I collected actually came to me. Some queen palm seeds falling over from my neighbor's yard. I just planted them for the heck of it, its fun to start things from seeds, not like they are exciting plants here. The goes for most of the plants I see here and I go all over California thanks to my job. I see mostly the same old stuff over and over and over and over. Wish I could go to Florida!

Scuba_Dave

Yes - the Rose Of Sharon or as I always sat Rose-O-Sharon
I have white w/pink center, red, purple (many shades) w/red center
Not sure what other colors - I have to wait until they bloom
I got all of them in the past few years by taking seedlings from other locations
One restaurant has a hedge of them & the landscapers just dif themout & toss them
They were more then happy to have me stop by & "weed" for free
I just transplanted 3 out along the street to give ths now plow guys a line of site
They keep plowing up the grass
Its' actually Town property, but I'd like it to be grass instead of plowed up dirt/gravel

island cassie

Free Barbados Pride seedlings - from one to the other in a week - gonna grow me a hedge!! The two little things in pots to the right are cashew seedlings for a friend.