Sowing (More) Local Native Seeds

Some construction work continues in the greenhouse - but I've moved in anyway :-D Hooray!

Last week I gathered some seed, and I looked through my messy seed collection, and decided it was about time. So here's what I sowed. This is another five-posts-in-one post. I just don't seem to be able to pace myself.

Epilobium canum - California Fuschia

Out walking Duncan, I felt very lucky to find a few late seeds of Epilobium canum. These particular plants grow on a steep bank (see above picture) that gets sun only part of the day, I think around noon, but not full afternoon sun.

A couple seedheads were completely sprung open, some fluffy seeds still left. So I know those were ripe. Some other seed pods felt hard but were not open. I think they’ll ripen. I put two pods in an envelope for later use perhaps. I planted the ripe ones, little fuzzy parachutes and all, in two-inch pots.

I know this is a fairly easy plant to propagate from seed because I grew some last year or the year before - but I didn't look after them well enough and they didn't survive where I put them. I think they dried out, and may have been in a spot that was too sunny. Some didn't get planted soon enough and they started dying off in their pots. One of that batch is surviving in a big container but it hasn't flowered. Live and learn. I'll try to do better this year.

Diplacus aurantiacus - Sticky Monkeyflower Bush.

The local wild monkeyflowers were just lovely this year (see above!) and I really hope I can get more to grow around the garden.

Last time I tried gathering monkeyflower seeds I was confused - I tried to grow seed pod husks thinking they were big seeds. Ha! The seeds themselves are actually tiny, like dust almost. I was put right by a more knowledgeable gardener. This year I kept checking them on my daily walk, and got some reasonable seeds. But many of the seed pods had been parasitized:

See the hole? In the picture below, what look like smallish pale brown seeds are some kind of larvae I think, or eggs rather. Not sure if you can see em in the photo below. Maybe if you click.

I noticed bush monkeyflower growing down in the north garden recently. That’s a first. I wonder if because it’s more open down there (since we removed the big broken bay tree). I hope can get some stands of sticky monkey going down there.

Mimulus guttatus - Seep Monkeyflower

I collected seeds from plants growing in a moist, shady ditch beside the single-track road that takes us home from the highway. The road follows a creek and makes interesting riparian plants fairly accessible.

The seed pods are papery like small lanterns and the seeds are very tiny.


Such a pretty flower - rich and buttery. The plant is low and has soft green stems and foliage, very unlike its bushy relative.


I'll put this, if it grows, in shady spots, maybe in a container near a hose spigot, as it does like to be very wet.

Eriogonum nudum - Naked Eriogonum

I also collected seeds of eriogonum nudum from the same single-track creek-side road, a little farther up. It grows up a bank, and likes good drainage.

I've been meaning to try and propagate this plant for a few years now. Not that it is very showy, but it is a local native, and there is not too much of it, so I do want to see if I can get some growing on the shadier side of the north garden (north slope down behind the house).

The individual flowers are pretty but as a plant, it would need to be massed for effect. I'm hoping I can grow it on a bank where some toyon grow.

It's hard to know if I actually got any seeds. I asked about this at a CNPS event and was advised to just crumble up the flowers, because the seeds are hard to detect. So that's what you see below - brown crumbled up flowers. Whether the seeds had all dispersed or not, I don't know.

I also mixed in some crumbled flowers I gathered earlier this year - maybe not quite ready - maybe ready enough. So between these two sets, I hope we got some seeds.

Ceanothus thyrsiflorus - California Wild Lilac

I sowed one set of seeds from the tree that grows on our north slope, half of which which is surviving after being split in two a couple of winters ago. The photo above is the only one I can find of it, before the big split. The other set is from a similar tree that grows just down the road a bit from us. Both sets had been stratified for a couple of months give or take, in the fridge (stratified = fancy word for "kept cold," to simulate winter).

Below, a picture of unidentified ceanothus, with bee, to remind us of spring. It could be nursery stock such as dark star, which I have, or it could be the warty leaved ceanothus which also grows here natively - but I didn't get any seeds of that one this year.

Attentive readers may recall that I stratified a batch of ceanothus seeds earlier this year, and it started to grow a fluffy white mold while in the fridge. In fact, it was quite moldy when I took it out. So this time I microwaved the damp peat before putting them in.

I recommend checking things you stick in the back of the fridge, whether dinner left-overs or seeds. And not only for mold. One of the containers of seeds was too wet, the peat soggy, not just nicely moist. I could have poured out some excess moisture if I had checked.

Shoot. I forgot to note which one was the soggy one. Dang!!! Without keeping good records it's harder to learn anything. Anyway at least I labeled them by origin.

I'd like to propagate "our" tree before it keels over. Never seems right to me, the thought that I "own" these plants that grow here all by themselves - but still, I do somehow care about them more than the plants that grow outside our boundary line! How strange is that?

Anyway. This time, no mold - or just a touch perhaps. Maybe it was perlite.

Madia elegans - Common Madia


I’ve been saving but never sowing seeds of this very attractive Madia for a long time - finally I sowed some! I gathered a few more a few days ago, as I was out walking Duncan. It grows in an open sunny spot near some oaks and old orchard trees:

And I'm hoping it will like it in the upper part of the north garden where it's quite sunny in places.

I sowed three flats of the various small seeds, and put the rest of the seeds into two inch pots, a few seeds per. All the 2 inch pots are held fairly securely in a seed flat.


Keeping them in the greenhouse is a bit - gratuitous - but hey, I'm playing with my new toy!

All the same, I was quite glad they were out of the wind and rain - and HAIL! that we had last night. I hope I can keep them happy. I'm eagerly looking forward to at least a few germinating and making it to the garden.