I’ve chosen Strawflowers as the first cut flower for #seedsavingformarketgrowers because it is so easy.
Strawflowers clearly tell you when they are ready – the inside of the flower gets all fluffy and you can gently rub that fluff away to reveal a tiny cup full of seed.
And that seed is pretty much perfectly clean. Shake that seed into a container and you’re set.
Strawflowers are also great for saving seed because there are so many blooms per plant. There’s no cost to let a few flowers go to seed. It won’t compromise your flower yield.
And a dozen or so flowers will supply you with enough seed for a few years!
Strawflowers are crossers, so if you’re growing more than 1 variety in a 1000’ radius, you can see some crossing. Though in a garden packed with flowers to distract pollinators, I bet you can go down to 600’ with minimal crossing.
If you want to maintain a population of diverse strawflowers, make sure to harvest at least 1 flower from each flower colour you want to see in future generations.
This is a great a beginner flower for seed saving!
The PROS of saving Strawflower seed:
- Readily dries down in field
- Very easy to extract the seed
- Very easy to clean the seed
- Tons of blooms even if you let a few go to seed
- There are some solid open pollinated varieties
- Annual – from seed to seed in 1 season
The CONS of saving Strawflower seed:
- Crossers gonna cross
SEED YIELD:
2 lbs to 4 lbs from a 100ft bed
SEED LIFE:
3 years
