Lupins

lucylema

Hi, I have some gorgeous lupins in my garden. They are starting to go over a bit now and getting furry pods on them. When can I take these off for the seeds? can I take them off for the seeds? My brother wants some seeds from them yousee and so do I.

If anyone can help, that would be fab x

chrisbur

The lupin pods will eventualy change colour to nearly black, they are then ready to collect.

lucylema

Thanks. How long do they take to do this? I have loads of fluffy pods lower down the flower and missing petals at the top so it looks kidna messy

a1cat

Only takes a few days normally, maybe 10-14. Then cut the whole old flower head off (now seed pods) and shove in a plastic bag somewhere to dry further.

Leave for a few weeks then shake out/ extract the seeds.

lucylema

Thanks for the replies. I have taken a couple of heads off already but they have the green/grey fluffy bits on them. Will I be able to do anything with them?

a1cat

You can let them dry, the seeds might be viable but they will be smaller & less vigorous than ones which mature on the growing plant.

lucylema

thank you for your help. i will keep my eyes on them. some of the smaller one are dropping off so will try and fish them out of the borders just to see what happens. oh buy the way, i want to have some little plants growing by may next year, when do i sow the seeds? the plants i have now were bought from the garden centre not grown from seed. thank you x

lostinrates

Just worth considering: they might not grow true from seed: they breed easily and well making new mixes. IMO they are all beautiful, but if its the particular colour you are after might be worth buying seed or small plants.

a1cat

I grew a lot from self collected seed this last 12 months-2 years - the ones that flowered were liquorice allsorts but not an ugly one amongst them.

Mayflower10cat

Ideally, leave the entire spike on the plant to ripen until it looks brown and crispy. But if you can't, cut the spike as late as possible and leave it to dry in a cool shed or utility room. Pop open the pods and take out the flat, round seeds. Store in paper bags until ready to plant. Last summer I bought a gorgeous F1 lupin which the slugs devoured almost overnight, grrr, but I managed to save plenty of seed. I sowed them in late September in a seed tray and left it in my little plastic greenhouse. Despite the terrible winter, come March, I had a tray of healthy seedlings which I potted on. (I knew that the young plants weren't going to come true to their parent, but it didn't matter.) By mid-June, I had about sixty healthy plants strong enough to be planted out. I gave half to the plant stall at our local summer fete and the rest I divided between friends and myself. Joy of joys, almost all of them are flowering right now, the spikes are gorgeous, all purples/blues/pinks mixed and all bi-colour.

I'm so glad I bothered!

foxgloves

I ve done quite a few lupins from saved seed. The original lupin was purple. From the saved seeds, I've had purple, purple with white, pink and pink with white. All have been pretty.