Lupins

Hello fellow gardeners.

I am looking to grow my own lupins from seed. I am a novice garderner and I have 2 VERY healthy specimens of lupins in my garden. I know that you need to cut your lupins down once they flower, however if I leave them and they grow their furry seed pods. How do I go about getting the seed from their pods and what is the best way to bring them on.

Thanks in advance

 

Hello ArcticFox. Leave a few Lupin pods on a plant until they are as ripe as they can get - the pods will be brown and dry. Cut the pods and take them indoors. Leave them on some newspaper or kitchen paper for a few days until they are really dried out. Crack the pods open and collect the seeds. Store the seeds in a brown envelope over winter.
In spring, soak the seeds in some tepid water overnight and then plant 1 seed to a 3" pot. They should come fine but they might not be true to the parent colour.

 

I expect they have already shed their seeds? if not they will be just about to! so need to handle them carefully. I would put a paper bag over the head, secure tightly (with my hand) on the stalk somewhere below the seed pod, snap/cut the stalk, and hang upside down somewhere indoors to complete ripening and then shed their seeds (into the paper bag). I hang up my bags / seed heads like this in our utility room where we dry clothes / boots etc.

If the pods have already shed their seed then you can dig up the seedlings next year (careful not to weed them out!).

Note that Lupins are poisonous. Handling them is OK, but best to wash your hands afterwards

 

I agree with Kristen, I would have thought they might have already shed their seeds by now. But otherwise good advice from Kristen and Alice.

A couple of miscellaneous points. Lupin seeds will keep for years. And if you have mixed colours, eventually all the seedlings will revert to their natural blue colour, so every now and then its worth buying some new seed if you want other colours.

 

My Lupins are still flowering. They've been a bit strange this year. They seem to have repeat flowered several times. Never had that before

 

Not grown lupins for years and I know the temptation to grow from your own seed is very great, but I tend to agree with PeterS.
I'd buy new seed of a known strain, you do tend to get just blue flowers from your own seed.

If you do grow from seed its always a good idea to encourage some of the weaker seedlings, as these tend to turn out to be the better colours.

 

Thats a good point Pete - I had never thought of it that way. But you are right the strongest growers (in many situations) are those closest to the wild, usually single coloured, plant.

I used to grow some 'My Castle' Lupins, which is a red strain, as well as other mixed colours. And as long as I grew them away from others the seed was reliably red. But this year I haven't kept the seeds strains seperate.

Alice - I have the odd Lupin in flower now. They are from seed earlier this year. Really, they are being grown as biennials for planting out and flowering next year, so I tend to pinch the flowers out.

 

Its something I always remember Geoff Hamilton saying, and its true with nearly all flowering plants.

Dont throw away the weak seedlings, they are more often than not the best colours.

 

That's certainly true for Dahlias from seed. If you just plant on the strongest seedlings they tend to be all the one colour. To get mixed colours you need to grow on some of the slower ones too.