A Guerrilla Gardening becomes more popular, so does ‘Guerrilla Harvesting,’ a new trend where gardeners, dog walkers, and generally snoopy people, pinch flowers from other people’s gardens to harvest the seeds for their mischievous purposes!
I won’t ask you where you get your flower heads from, but I am more than happy to help your navigate your way through them to collect your favorite seeds. Today I’ll help you harvest Purple Coneflower seeds.
1. Harvest a spent bloom. The more faded and dried the bloom the better.
2. Strip the flower of it’s petals, stem, and leaves.
3. Cut the center capitulum in half to expose the disc florets (rows of tiny pollinated blooms already dried), and seeds.
4. Rub the disc florets apart from each other, to remove them from the compound bloom head. The dried florets will be the green tops to the white seeds.
5. Allow the seeds and florets to dry and separate.
6. Place the white seeds in a container, or paper envelope for planting next year, or bring them out in the winter to plant under artificial lighting for a winter treat.
TIP: I prefer to remove seeds from Coneflowers before the flower head dries completely, which makes the seed removal process less painful than fighting against the needle sharp dried florets. Another method of harvest is to simply remove the flower heads, place them upside-down in paper bags in a garage, and allow the heads to dry up and drop the seeds themselves. Try this even easier method if you have the room to store the flowers before harvesting.
Top Photo Courtesy of: smoorenburg
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