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Starting Plants from Seed

Posted on Wednesday, March 25, 2026 · Leave a Comment 



It seems to me that the prices of many things have gone up significantly in recent times. One way to combat that, as a gardener, is to start plants by seed instead of buying plants that someone else as started, watered and mothered for months.
 
Many gardeners enjoy starting lettuce or carrots by seed outdoors, but few of us start perennial or biennial flowers by seed. Why is that? Because we want results right away. This summer we want gorgeous new varieties of purple cone flower, black-eyed Susans or Shasta daisies. Alas, most perennials and biennials will develop into handsome plants this year if started by seed, but few will blossom before next year.
 

Peonies with foxglove

Biennials, by definition, do not bloom in their first year. They grow foliage this year, send up a flower stalk next year, and then, having produced seed, they die. Probably the best known of these are foxgloves, specifically Digitalis purpurea. It has a flower stalk that is 18 to 60 inches tall, adorned with blooms in pink and purple and shaped a bit like the finger of a glove. One named variety, “Foxy” will bloom late in its first year if started early enough. Foxglove blossoms bloom in sequence along their stem over several weeks.

 
Foxgloves do well in part shade and like lightly moist soil. They are easy to propagate: I just cut a stalk that has finished blooming, and shake the small seeds over bare, lightly cultivated soil and pat down without covering. There are also yellow foxgloves that are fully perennial (Digitalis lutea).
 
Hollyhocks are also terrific biennial flowers, though some books list them as half-hardy perennials. These beauties can grow to be up to six-feet tall and bloom for a long time. If you cut off the stem as soon as it finishes blooming, sometimes you can confuse the poor thing – it doesn’t know if it produced seed or not. So it may send up another flower stem next year.
 

Canadian sanguisorba in November

Perennials generally live for several to many years. The genus “Sanguisorba” includes several species of perennial flowers, all of which are delightful. The common name for these is burnet. “Sanguisorba canadensis” is our naïve species, a tall, late flowering wetland species, and is called Canadian burnet. I’ve had a big clump for 20 years at least, and love its fuzzy white pendulous blossoms. Pollinators love it in the fall.

 

My favorite of the burnets is Sanguisorba hakusanensis or Korean Burnet, one called “Lilac Squirrel”. Why that name? The blossoms are pink to lilac in color and hang down like the squirrel tails attached to bicycle handlebars in the 1950’s. Less tall than our native, it does need staking as it can get to be 2- to 4-feet tall. I have found it easy to propagate by seed, and blooms in its second year.  I collect and grow all species of burnets, which can grow from miniatures to big bush clumps of gorgeous foliage 5-feet tall and 5-feet wide, but have not collected seed from them – yet.

Lilac squirrel Snguisorba blossoms are delightful to touch and see

 

Hosta are great foliage plant that do best in shady areas in rich soils. If you collect seed from your favorite hostas be forewarned that most hostas are hybrids and the seeds will not produce plants identical to their seed-producing parent plant. I only planted them by seed once, and I did it with seed from one called “Hosta sieboldii”.The parent plant is known for having variegated leaves, but mine produces all-green leaves. Still, I’ve had that clump for 40 years, and it gives me pleasure every time I walk past it.

 

Dividing hostas is an easy way to get more. 005

Generally it is best to give hosta seeds a cold period of 6 to 8 weeks in your refrigerator. This is true for many varieties of seed, so a good practice for all. Hosta seeds may need some sunshine on them to germinate, so cover them with a very thin layer of soil in their starting pots, or with vermiculite. Mature hostas are easy to divide to get more plants.

 
What about starting trees from seed? It’s not hard: blue jays and squirrels do it all the time – they bury them, and forget where they put them, just like us with the car keys. Although you can plant tree seeds, I recommend just looking for first-year seedlings planted by your wildlife. Of course, this works best with native trees like oaks and maples.
 

Acorns that float are not likely to germinate so throw them out and plant the ones that sink

Last year I dug up half a dozen sprouted acorns and moved them to an area that needed more trees to screen my property from the road. It was a dry summer and I was less than fully vigilant, so some of them died. But there will be others I can dig up this year. Remember: watering is key for any first year planting.

 
So here is my challenge: Go to your local garden center and buy seed packets for three perennials or biennials. Start them either indoors under lights, or later, outdoors. Buy things that you like and want several plants, or even a bed full of them. You can fill in a bed of first year perennials with some annuals that will bloom this year. Please email me how that works out for you if you do so.
 
Lastly, it might better to plant flower seeds in small pots rather than in the soil, as it can be difficult to identify them when weed seeds are growing around them. Or plant them in a perfect circle to help identify them. Good luck!
 
Reach Henry by e-mail at henry.homeyer@comcast.net or by snail mail at P.O. Box 364, Cornish Flat, NH 03746. His column appears here monthly.

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How to Divide Flowers to Get More Plants – for Free!

Posted on Tuesday, May 26, 2020 · Leave a Comment 



I spend a lot in plant nurseries. At $10 or more a pop, it is easy to spend a hundred dollars quick as a blink. But I’m also a firm believer in dividing my perennials so that I don’t have to spend so much. Once you have established a good plant palette, you can increase numbers by dividing plants. Don’t be afraid to give it a try.
 
You need to learn a little about each plant in order to know if the roots can easily be separated, allowing you to divide plants. And although horticulturists may tell you that the time of year is important, in my experience you can divide most things anytime. Peonies are supposed to be moved or divided only in the fall after they have gone dormant, but I once moved 50 peonies for a client in June and they thrived.
 
One way to learn about propagation is by using a good text. My bible is Manual of Herbaceous Ornamental Plants by Steven M. Stills (Stipes Press, paperback, 814 pages). Although the publisher sells new copies at $58.80, used copies are readily available for a fraction of the price.
 
The book tells when to divide (spring or fall) and whether plants spread easily by seed. It also gives cultural tips about where and how to plant each flower. Most common and many unusual plants are included, one or two pages on each. There are drawings for each, with a few color photos in the back.
 

Don’t be afraid to cut through leaves or roots when dividing a big patch of daylilies

Another way to learn about dividing plants is to just do it. Dig up a plant and examine the roots. I use a drain spade to do this. A drain spade is a pointed shovel with a long, narrow blade (commonly 6 inches wide and 16 inches long). I plunge it into the soil and pry back a little. Then I repeat the procedure on all sides. When the plant is loose, I lift it out.

 
Some plants have long, deep roots. Others, such as peonies, have roots that look like tubers. Most have lots of string-like roots going in all directions. If the bed you are working in is full of weeds, it is important to distinguish between grass or weed roots and those of your plant. Observe the color and texture of the plant roots and remove any roots that are different. Daylily roots, for example are very distinctive in both color and shape.

 

Barerooting with a hose will ensure you have no weed roots

When dividing a plant, you may wish to actually bare-root it. Do this by shaking off any soil attached, or washing the root system with a hose to remove the soil. Weed or grass roots will be obvious when you do that. I normally do that for any gifted plants because I want to avoid getting any invasive weeds that might come with it. I learned that lesson the hard way, having accepted some nice iris plants that had goutweed roots embedded that then have plagued me for 30 years.

 
If all the roots are attached to a single stem, you cannot divide the plant.  But most plants are not like that. You can usually tease the roots apart, taking sections of the clump apart. Each chunk will give you a nice plant.
 
Hostas are common shade plants with lovely foliage. They do produce white flowers in mid-summer, but most people grow them for the foliage. Big clumps commonly are created as the plant expands, roots sending up new plants. Dig up a big clump, and you might get a dozen plants – or more.
 

Dividing hostas roots with a serrated knife is easy

I was dividing some hostas recently, and found some clumps hard to pull apart. So I used a curved, serrated knife to cut through some roots, allowing me to separate them. If you don’t have a garden knife, buy a steak knife at a yard sale or junk shop – on sneak one out of the kitchen – and it will work just fine.

 
And then I wanted to move some common orange daylilies. These send out long roots, which then send up new plants, so one plant can become many just in the time it takes to get a bottle of orange pop from the kitchen. Or a year to two.
 
With the daylilies, I used a shovel to cut through the roots between plants to get them into clumps of a manageable size. Don’t worry about damaging roots or leaves, these puppies are indestructible. Just dig up, cut apart and move.
 
For spring blooming plants, digging now may hinder flowering this year. For fall blooming plants, that is less of a problem. Some plants benefit by digging, dividing and fertilizing. Steven Stills’ book mentions how often to do that: for purple cone flower, for example, it is every 4 years. For Shasta daisies, every other spring is best. And so on.
 
Always choose a cool, cloudy day for dividing plants. Even a drizzly day. Plants can go into shock if divided at noon on a hot day. I like to do it in the evening when rain is in the forecast.
 
The great thing about digging up a big perennial is not only that you have more plants: your friends will, too. I often put a blurb in my town list serve offering free plants. I’ve made some very nice friends that way!
 
Henry is now teaching Zoom classes to gardening clubs and libraries. Contact him at henry.homeyer@comcast.net. He is the author of 4 gardening books.

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Saving Money in the Flower Garden

Posted on Wednesday, July 4, 2012 · Leave a Comment 



          My house sits on a couple of acres, most of which is growing something. There is a big vegetable garden, some trees, berry bushes and decorative shrubs, a  little lawn and lots of flowers. I could spend a fortune, I suppose, if I bought flowers for every square foot of flowerbed that I have. Over the years, however, I have learned how to transplant small plants that started on their own from seed – “volunteers” – and how to divide existing perennials.
 
          Let’s start with the volunteer plants. The first thing one must do is learn to recognize the young seedlings – and not pull them as weeds. I do this mainly by the color and texture of the leaves, but shape is important, too. And of course, you can’t use bark mulch in the flower beds if you want volunteers. I grow perennials close together so that they shade out weeds, and try to pull any weeds that do grow before the go to seed.
 
          Twenty years ago a neighbor pulled up in front of my house and handed me a cardboard box with 8 candelabra primroses (Primula japonica). I accepted them with pleasure, and went directly to a good reference book to find out what they needed: rich soil, light shade, consistent moisture. I had those conditions under a small grove of wild apple trees, and planted them there.
 

Primula japonica

 

Now I have hundreds of candelabra primroses and many other kinds. Once I realized that one primrose would grow there, I tried other species, and all but one (P. vialii) have done well there – and spread. Most spread by seed, and one (P. kisona) by root, like a groundcover. I regularly dig primroses and move them or give them to friends.
 
Giving excess plants to friends, especially lesser known varieties, is a great way to save money. I find that if you give a person a nice clump of flowers, you are most certainly going to go home with 2 or 3 new plants for your own garden.
 
Dividing plants is easy, once you get the hang of it. But you have to know what kind of root each perennial has, and that generally means some experimentation. The only book I have found that describes dividing for most common perennials is The Well-Tended Perennial Garden: Planting & Pruning Techniques by Tracy DiSabato-Aust. That’s a book that should be in every gardener’s library because it tells you how to prune, deadhead, get to re-bloom, divide and more. It’s in hardback at $34.95 (Timber Press, 2006) and worth every penny.
 
It is best to divide most perennials in the spring when the foliage is just 3-6 inches tall. Tough characters like hostas and daylilies can be done anytime, though preferably on a cool cloudy day if doing so now. I recently divided a few hostas and took off a section from a large bugbane or snakeroot (Cimicifuga ramosa), and none showed signs of stress.
 

Dividing hostas

You can cut out a section of a large hosta or daylily by cutting out a wedge with a spade or even a long knife. I sometimes use a serrated root knife I got from Lee Valley Tools. Tracy DiSabato-Aust prefers a non-serrated knife, so I guess either will work just fine. Get down on your hands and knees and try to see natural division points before you cut.
 
Alternatively, you can dig up a plant, place it on the ground and then use 2 spading forks to separate it. Just insert them into the middle of the clump, back-to-back, and work the forks back and forth. It’s a lot of work for a big clump of daylilies. I prefer just to cut up a clump with a sharp spade. The spade lets me stand on it with all my weight to slice through the tough roots. I once divided a 4-foot wide clump of Joe Pye weed (Eupatorium maculatum) and ended up using a pick ax to whack it apart. Not a pretty sight, but I was determined to remove and divide it.
 
Groundcovers send out roots and can be divided anytime. Just dig up a plant, sever the root from the mother plant, and move it to a new location. Easy.
 
Some plants have fleshy taproots that are easily broken, and these are not good candidates for division. Peonies, Oriental poppies, bleeding heart and pink mallow fit in that category. They should be divided in the fall –though little seedlings move easily, spring or fall. Siberian iris should be divided in fall.
 
Some plants go downhill and become less vigorous if they are not divided on a regular basis. Have you lost a nice Shasta daisy? If so, please try again – but divide it every 3 years. That allows you to add compost and slow-release organic fertilizer to the soil, which rejuvenates the plants.
 
The easiest, least expensive method for getting more flowers is just to save seeds and plant them. I plant when the seeds are ripe, just scratching them in where I want more plants next year. I do this with Jack-in-the-pulpit, annual poppies, foxgloves and rose campion, and they generally reward me handsomely.
 
So don’t spend a fortune. Divide, trade with friends, start things by seed. In no time you’ll have all the plants you need – even if not all the plants you want.
 
Henry Homeyer is the author of 4 gardening books. His Web site is www.Gardening-Guy.com.

 

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