Saving & donating seeds?

[bibliofloris]

I’ve got my eye on some seed capsules in my garden to save and donate to this winter’s seed exchange. I know the basics of seed collecting and processing, and I know I need to try my best to identify them correctly, but I have a few questions:

Do you want more seeds of common things, like yellow Meconopsis cambrica (or whatever it’s called these days?)

Do you want seeds of plants that are definitely not for the rock garden, like my enormous Acer macrophyllum?

How many seeds is a typical minimum donation of a plant? If I only have a few to spare of something rarer, should I send them anyway?

If I have extras from a packet of commercial seeds I purchase this season, can I donate those, too? Should I mark them as such?

Apologies to those of you who’ve been over this all already — but I don’t want to waste the volunteers’ time. And maybe another new member has questions too, that have kept them from donating?

Thank you!
Kelly

[Carolyn]

Hello Kelly,
I can answer some of your questions:
Your common plant might be desirable for someone else, so yes, donations are welcome. I am part of the seed team, and when we are processing the donations ready to send out to the volunteer packeters, I am often surprised to see that there is only one donor for lots of the taxa. So if that donor is unable to donate next time, there will be some disappointed people!

We accept a wide range of seeds - it could be difficult to decide what is or isn't an alpine! (we might draw a line at cabbage seeds, though!) If you look through previous lists you will see entries for beauties such as Acer griseum - I have a sapling of this in my own garden, thanks to the seedex. So yes, tree seeds are welcome too.

How many seeds as a minimum donation - I have seen donations of special things with just half a dozen seeds. Send in what you can - none of the seed goes to waste - for example, after the seedex, spare seeds are sent round the Shows for sale to the general public. This raised some extra cash for the club.

I don't think I have come across people sending in extra seeds from commercial packets, so I will leave it to someone else to answer that.  Such seed would be at least a year older than your freshly-collected garden seeds, and in some cases, would result in lower germination rates.

I hope this is of some help and will encourage more forum members to join the SRGC  and take part in the Seed Exchange. It is well worth doing - I have had some excellent seeds over the years, almost unobtainable elsewhere.

[bibliofloris]

Thanks, Carolyn — that’s very helpful!
Kelly

[Maggi Young]

Our colleagues in the NRV are reminding members about their seed exchange - the same goes for SRGC, VRV, NARGS, AGS and all the other organisations with members' seed exchanges - do please support them!