Why Did These Seeds Bloom Wrong?

By M Fitzgerald (MitchF) October 4, 2007

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I see a lot of people trading seeds or selling seeds that will never become what they claim. They mean well, they don’t want to sell or trade bad seeds, but they have misunderstood the world of seeds.

Seeds are a wonderful world all their own and they need to be taken for what they are---packages. Yep, they are wonderful packages and what you got the seeds from will make a difference in what you are going to get. There is nothing worse than planting those “have to get them” seeds, babying the plants, and waiting for the bloom, only to have them bloom the wrong color, wrong shape, or in the wrong form.

The first group of seeds is those that will come true from seed. I know this sounds so simple but not every seed will come true from seed. Only plants that are species plants will come true from seed. The best way to think about this is, and there are exceptions all over the place mind you, if the name can be found in PlantFiles all in Latin then it will most likely come true from seed. Trees are notorious for not following this with many types of species breeding together to make new varieties. Truth be told, all the hybrids we have today do not come true from seed. They all come from mixing, back in the past, two plants that normally do grow true from seed.

The second group of plants are the named varieties of plants and some mixes of species. These will never come true from seed. You can plant two daylilies together and cross them together and they will never ever come true from seed. Often these plants come with a high price tag at first, and so people often look for seeds to make the pain of the price a little less. I learned the hard way when I longed for a particular daylily. I have a wonderful friend who let me in on the secret that the seeds for the daylily I was looking at would never produce the same daylily as the parent I got the seed from. Yes, the mother of those seeds might be the plant I wanted but the father was who knows what and the seeds would produce flowers that would look maybe like their parents and maybe nothing like them at all.

The lesson to learn is that all gardening is an adventure. It just depends on how big of an adventure you are willing to take when deciding what seeds to buy. For those “have to have” plants you want to have in the garden, it is always best to buy the plants. I know this costs more, but you know for sure the plant you have drooled over and feel in love with will be the plant you are getting. For those of us who are more into the garden for the garden’s sake, and love the new, and the hunt for a great new plant, seed are the way to go. In any case, there are some seeds that will always come back true to self and these are the plants you can find in seed packets in most of the good garden catalogs. Just be careful what you are getting when it comes to seeds and you should be fine. If you know ahead of time that the seeds will be true from seed or if you are starting a new adventure, you will be ready to plant the new wonders you have grown in your garden.

About M Fitzgerald   I am a pentecostal preacher, gardener,husband, and a father. I love natives, daylilies, iris, and roses. I love teaching others, be they children or adults, about the garden and plants.

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Subject: homework

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Posted by garuza (from Fort Lauderdale, FL) on October 8, 2007 at 10:47 PM:

Up late iding rare plants collected from nursery next door; that was destroyed from hurricane Katrina. Man was in his 80's and couldn't keep it up. So he had an idea to sell the place and tried to clean it up, I helped him what I could. And he gave me all of his orchids, then he said I could have anything I wanted, just take it. I called him that nite and asked him if I could sell the plants. He said he didn't care. There were mostly very rare crotons and ferns, some alocasias and colocasias and some stuff I still can't id. The realtor who bought the place found out what real work is. All the sprinklers were busted so things were dying left and right due to the drought. They hired some foreigners to clean up the place. And they carted off to the dump an un estimatible amount of good stuff. But seeing as to how it's Florida. A month later it's all coming back. And now I'm finding things I couldn't see before. Today she pulled up about 15 very rare crotons and told me if I would do some weeding I could have them; down on my knees I went and close to the ground I found a fern I had never seen before. The old fellow gave me a bunch of old books including an Exotica and I'm going to take all this stuff i've collected over the pat 2 years to a plant affair 10/20; 21. A few pics if they will come through.

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Posted by LouC (from Desoto, TX) on October 4, 2007 at 2:50 PM:

Well....just wait until someone plants my seed...lol....even I don't know what most of them are. I prefer the adventure of the seed germinating. Am not picky at all....if it lives....success. Thanks, Mitch for those that want a certain plant your article gives good guidance.

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Posted by KyWoods (from Melbourne, KY) on October 4, 2007 at 3:15 PM:

Very informative! This reminds me of the results of dog breeding, having worked in a pet store...ya just never know what you're gonna get sometimes, but they sure are cute! LOL

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Posted by roadrunner (from Hereford, AZ) on October 4, 2007 at 5:01 PM:

I don't "trade" seeds much...too afraid that mine won't turn out to be as represented...but I do give them away...that way I feel better if they turn out to be yellow...instead of red. Jo

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Posted by LouC (from Desoto, TX) on October 4, 2007 at 5:43 PM:

No I don't trade either. Until this year...I didn't even give away just for that reason.

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Posted by roybird (from Santa Fe, NM) on October 4, 2007 at 6:42 PM:

Quite true. I found that out with "Russian Mammoth Sunflower" seeds. They revert back to regular size sunflowers. Sometimes you get lucky and other times not.

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Posted by Islandshari (from Kwajalein
(Marshall Islands)) on October 4, 2007 at 6:48 PM:

Thanks Mitch, for explaining what I've been doing wrong! It's not me - its the seeds! I feel so much better! All kidding aside, this was a very informative article, people sometimes just don't realize that their precious seeds aren't going to give them what they wanted. Great job - again!

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Posted by judycooksey (from Pocahontas, TN) on October 4, 2007 at 8:48 PM:

Wonderful article!!

Judy

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Posted by frostweed (from Arlington, TX) on October 4, 2007 at 10:31 PM:

Good job Mitch!!!
Josephine.

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Posted by MitchF (from Oklahoma City, OK) on October 4, 2007 at 10:33 PM:

Thank you all- I loved doing this one.

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Posted by LouC (from Desoto, TX) on October 4, 2007 at 11:05 PM:

Thanks for everything....

LouC

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Posted by Rosemack (from Robertsdale, AL) on October 8, 2007 at 9:02 AM:

I would love to trade/sell or give away seeds or cuttings. Where do I do this and how do I get started? Thanks and really enjoyed the article.

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Posted by GMAN39 (from Irving, TX) on October 8, 2007 at 9:32 AM:

How true this is. I ordered some RED Cypress Vine seeds only to find when these
new vines flowered, I had received WHITE. Although disappointed, the next season I planted the WHITE with RED and found the mix to be quite attractive.
Thanks for your article.

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Posted by serenaski (from Traverse City, MI) on October 8, 2007 at 10:44 AM:

Mitch thank you so much for this info, although I have not tried seeds yet (novice gardner), I had seriously considered gathering the seeds from only the snap dragons with pink flowers. I had a sneaking suspicion that maybe they were sold as mixed flats because that is how they reproduced, but I have been afraid to ask. Since my annual snaps are hybrid miniatures and all shared the same bed and the same bees, I will assume my seeds to be of mixed origin :) That's cool, if I can actually grow seeds I will be so happy, it won't matter what color they are (well I guess a wee bit of green is probably somewhat mandatory for anything I would attempt).

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