Life Giving Seeds

 

Every tiny seed holds a bit of life, stored efficiently enough that it can spring into growth in some future time when conditions permit. The saying goes that every acorn holds the potential for a future forest of oaks. Although that acorn will grow into only a single tree, each tree can produce millions of acorns during its lifespan.

A ripened seed, the DNA for a new plant, contains stored proteins, carbohydrates and minerals in its cotyledon, and a tiny embryo plant ready to extend its tiny root into the world as it begins to grow.  Everything that embryo plant needs to fuel its growth in its first few days, until it can photosynthesize, must already be available in the seed. There is magic in watching life emerging from a seed as it cracks open, allowing its tiny embryo to grow into its potential.

 

 

Some gardeners save seeds from their favorite plants to sow next year. But many gardeners rush to deadhead flowers as they fade, tidying up and encouraging new blooms. A few of us enjoy watching the unfolding of each flower from bud to blossom to fruit or ripened seed capsule.

A single plant can produce tens of thousands of seeds each year. This is bad news when the plant isn’t desirable, or you simply don’t have space for so many seedlings to mature. In those years when I’ve been soft-hearted, curious, or neglectful, and allowed certain seeds to ripen, I’ve paid for it in subsequent years with a huge crop of unwanted seedlings to manage.

 

 

I had a sea of goldenrod seedlings to pull this year, and I can see the damage the goldenrod has done in crowding out more desirable plants. I also have a sea of garlic chives, which now serve as a ‘matrix’ plant cropping up between perennials and in odd spaces everywhere.

Some gardeners design their spaces around plants that reliably self-seed year to year. After establishing a few individuals in year one, they expect an ever-evolving display of flowers from seedlings in years to come. It takes great faith to scatter flower seeds in fall or winter in expectation of summer flowers. Bulbs seem much safer, since seeds prove such a valuable treat for wildlife in winter.

 

 

When you consider that only a very small percentage of seeds ever have the chance to germinate and mature, it almost makes sense to let the patch of Rudbeckia or Solidago stand while birds forage their seeds all winter. I love watching a flock of goldfinches rise from their feasting as I walk past.  Cardinals extract seeds from dried capsules on the rose of Sharon, and hunt below the dried and frozen Lantana.

Nutrient packed seeds left standing in the garden can mean a difference between life and death for songbirds, mice, squirrels, and so many other small animals through the coldest months of the year. Seeds provide a dependable, protein and mineral rich winter diet for wildlife that won’t spoil before spring.  Birds find seeds even under ice and snow, during the coldest weeks of winter when insects aren’t available.

Herbs, grasses and vegetables may also be left to ripen their seeds for wildlife.  Goldfinches love basil seeds and will perch on the delicate flowering stems to eat them while the plant is still in flower.  Lettuce, kale, broccoli, parsley, fennel, onions and garlic all produce desirable seeds on reasonably attractive plants.

 

 

After years of leaving the black-eyed Susans and cutleaf coneflower to stand all winter, we have seedlings coming up all around the yard. March and April find me digging out Rudbeckias to give away or compost.  Monarda have taken over a patch in the back, and hardy flossflower seedlings pop up everywhere, even in containers.  The stand of obedient plant grows each summer, and I always have seedling rose of Sharon shrubs to share.

 

 

Wildlife gardeners know that birds and butterflies respond more readily to a large population of a species than they will to an individual plant here and there. Volume makes a difference when trying to attract certain animal species to your yard. They need to ‘see’ what is there and have some confidence that there is enough volume to meet their needs. Monarchs may not see a single milkweed plant in a pot as they flutter past. But they will certainly see, and visit, a larger stand of plants where their larvae will find enough food to mature.

 

 

That is why it can be a good thing to grow a greater volume of fewer plant species. Garden designers advise us to plant in blocks of three to seven plants. That may not be in the budget at the garden center, but we will certainly develop those larger blocks from flowering plants left to self-seed and spread on rhizomes.

Many of the plants we grow feed pollinators with their nectar and pollen, feed various insects with their leaves, and finally feed birds and other small animals months later with their seeds. They give back to the garden ecosystem throughout the season.  We enjoy their flowers when they bloom, but we often enjoy watching the butterflies and birds visiting them even more. We appreciate these generous plants, like Hibiscus, Conoclinium, and Rudbeckia as much for their functionality in our wildlife garden as for their ornamental beauty while in flower.

 

 

To get a full measure of value from plants like these, we must let them go into decline. This can be tough when we feel that others will judge our garden spaces on neatness. Fennel or parsley plants supporting caterpillars and going to seed aren’t particularly attractive. Once they are no longer ‘pretty,’ we feel obliged to do something to neaten them up.

 

 

That something generally means cutting them back, or at the least deadheading their fading flowers and browning seed capsules. Yet fading leaves and even those brown, dying stems provide food and habitat for many insects that overwinter in our garden.  Those insects provide another source of winter food for birds who stay behind to overwinter in the area. Simple ‘cues of care’ like paths, benches, fences, arbors, edging, sculpture, neat shrubs and blooming containers can telegraph to visitors that the fading plants are intentional.

Instead of offering purchased seed mixes from feeders all winter, we can let nature play out her own plans and rhythms in our gardens. Everything in nature multi-tasks, and everything is interrelated. Plants aren’t ornaments so much as nodes in the web of life. If we can see the beauty in even these ripening and declining stages in our gardens, we will support more life than we can ever imagine.

 

 

 Jim Easton is a photographer and Master Naturalist

Elizabeth McCoy is a photographer and Master Gardener Tree Steward