Collecting Seeds

On a nice fall day you head outside and take a walk.  As you pass a neighbors yard you see that once beautiful garden laying dormant and wish you had some of their flowers.  Well since it is fall most likely there are seeds that you can gather. 

Besides the colors of the trees fall is a great time of year.  Although your garden seems to be sleeping it isn't.  The last stage before that long winter nap is happening.....the setting of seeds.  Some may have already produced and released their bounty but many are still holding on to their treasure.

Collecting seeds can be fun and educational.  Learning what each plants seed pod or seed looks like.  Discovering that there are many sizes, shapes, and colors to seeds and seed pods. 

 Here is a good example of how different seeds can be.  The 2 black seeds are Morning Glory seeds.  The 2 big white ones are Moon Flower.  Both plants seem very simular in nature as they are both climbing vines and the leaves are virtualy the same.  But the flowers and seed pods are very different.

Here in these two pictures are both seed pods for Morning Glories.  They look very different though.  Both plants are indeed Morning Glories but in this case the seed pod shape and size are clues at to the variety.  The first is from my Heavenly Blue.  Large blue blooms. 

The second is from a vine on a neighbors fence. These blooms were significantly smaller in size as well as different colors.   The pods weren't the only difference either.  To gather these seeds I just simply had to touch the pods and they broke open.  Where my Heavenly Blue pods required a little more work...not much but a little. 

This pod here is from the Moon Flower vine.  Like the seeds a lot bigger than the Morning Glory.  These also take much longer to fully develope.  And are not as plentiful as Morning Glory.  Mostlikely because the amount of pollinating insects at night is far less than during the day...so not as many of the blooms will become seed pods.

 
Here is a close up of the 2 different Morning Glory seeds.  On the left you can see 3 larger and more oval like shapped...these are the Heavenly Blue.  The others are the ones from the fence.  The mini blooms.

This funny looking thing is a seed pod for a Mimosa Tree.  For these you have to make sure that they are brown not green.  Green is still growing. 

And here you can see what the seeds inside look like.  Although these all came from the same seed pod they are all different.  The basic shape is the same but size isn't.  If you were to open a green pod you would see that most are all the same size.  It is during the drying stage that they shrink...some more than others.

The Rose of Sharon seed pods are very different in many ways.  Although for the most part the seeds with in are the same from variety to variety unlinke the Morning Glory ones sometimes the pods will differ.  In size for one but also in time to maturity and ammount of seeds. 

These Rose of Sharon seeds all came from one pod.  But the next pod I opened had 2 seeds.  very different in numbers but both looked very much the same.  The hair you see is called wings.  It's how they get around when the pod is fully open. Carried by the wind.

I went to a few different sites to find out what to look for in terms of seed pods that are ready and that aren't.  What the seeds look like, and how to go about germinating them.  The following sites are really good to use to identify mystery seeds the kids may bring home http://www.theseedsite.co.uk/, and http://www.oardc.ohio-state.edu/seedid/ were 2 really good ones.  I used them to find out what this crazy looking seed was.  Turns out it is Clematis.