Seed Pods

[chasw]

Having has a stroll around the garden,after arriving home,this year I seem to have more seed pods than I have ever noticed before,so need some advice

1 Do I plant them and see what I get?

2 Will they come true?( I dont think so ,)

All ideas and thought most welcome

[KentGardener]

Hi Chas

I have heard some say that you can just bury the pod and let the seeds germinate that way.  I have never grown them myself and give all mine away to people with more space.

The vast majority of the named hybrids/varieties will not come true from seed - but species could well do.

[Melvyn Jope]

Hello Chas,
A rather late response to your question about Galanthus seed. I grow a lot of galanthus from seed each year for the following reasons :-
It is a good way of increasing species quickly (if you regard three years from sowing to flowering as quick enough!)
Sowing seed from my selected forms of my G.reginae-olgae gives the hope that something better will be produced.
Sowing seed from plant in the garden just as a way of increasing numbers and again has the propect of producing something different.

John has already answered about species breeding true but that selected forms/hybrids will not, although  I think its always worth sowing seed from plants with yellow ovaries just to see what you will get.

I would advise against just burying the seedpod, as you will see in the first picture of Galanthus gracilis seed pods there can be a lot of seeds in each, in the case of the one top right over eighty seeds so sowing them in the usual way on the surface of compost then covered in grit will produce a more satisfactory outcome.

There can be a lot of variability in the appearance of seed, in the second photo the seeds on the left are G. gracilis, in the centre seed from my G. reginae-olgae and on the right autumn flowering G. transcaucasicus.

[chasw]

Thanks for your replies