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| If I rip pansies up with seed pods will the seeds still ripen? I have been growing pansies for only a few years but have saved the seeds every year. My plants are looking awful right now since I completely forgot to cut them back. They currently have about half seed pods and 1/4 flowers and another 1/4 wilted flowers/new seed pods. Has anybody tried pulling them up, putting them upside down in a bag and seeing if the seeds keep ripening? I assume so but want to know anybody else's experience with this? I really have to resist the urge to pull these guys up since I really want the seeds, I have some cool varieties such as Tiger's Eye, and some huge flowered(up to 4-5 inches across) ones, not sure the variety though.
Thanks to anybody who'll help! |
Follow-Up Postings:
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| Probably a lot of them already are ripe. If you break open a few of the seed pods, you will see that they are not all the same age, and fall along a continuum from totally immature with soft, white, underripe seeds to old pods that have already shed their seeds. There will be many in the middle range that contain mature, brown seeds that will grow. Bottom line, you should be able to get quite a few viable seeds from a typical pansy plant. Please be aware that they will not come 100% true to type, as many pansies and violas are F1 hybrids. They will still be pretty, though, at least the first and probably the second generations. Violas, especially, degenerate into the wild species type after several successive generations of saving seeds. |
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- Posted by dowlinggram 3 (My Page) on Wed, Jun 20, 12 at 0:50
| No seeds won't ripen as you call it. The seeds will stay at the same stage of maturity as when you ripped them out. Some in the pod will probably be fully mature and some will be immature so you will likely get some seeds that are viable but not as many as if you left them on the plants to mature |
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| Ditto what dowling says....pansy seeds will not continue to mature once the mother plant is dead. Also, though, ditto what denninmi says. ;-). You just might find that some of the pods are mature. Tell me, Gloxinialover....you've been saving the seeds from these same plants year after year? The 'Tiger Eyes'? |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Wed, Jun 20, 12 at 8:26
| technically.. it isnt even summer yet.. why not give them a haircut.. and see if they wont respond with new buds??? and why not just let them be.. and seed themselves in.. instead of 'saving' the seed ... are the seeds not winter hardy in z8??? .. it would surprise if they werent??? ken |
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| ken, if Gloxinia lives in a southern or western zone 8, rather than a PNW *, her pansies are toast by late spring/early summer. It's one of those plants (tender perennial) that provides color all fall through early spring and then is typically ripped out to replace with a summer blooming variety. There's not enough pinching or prodding one can do to encourage nice growth from a pansy in the summer. Glox may also have them planted in a location where "looking awful" is not acceptable. I have lots of places like that: in my containers and in the front yard beds. 'Scraggly and awful' get yanked in a heartbeat. |
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- Posted by rosiew 8 GA (rosemarywalsh@bellsouth.net) on Wed, Jun 20, 12 at 14:47
| Rhizo, ever been to a garden shop in the fall down here and seen Yankee shoppers thinking someone is trying to pull one on them, offering pansies in September?? Rosie, Sugar Hill, GA |
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- Posted by ken_adrian z5 (My Page) on Wed, Jun 20, 12 at 15:10
| they sell certain ones up here in fall also ... some come back.. others not ... but if they shot their wad ... ?? ... get rid of them ... ken |
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- Posted by GloxiniaLover none (My Page) on Thu, Jun 21, 12 at 20:02
| yes Rhizo_1! just what I was thinking about having them in a no ugly plant allowed area! I wouldnt care except those pots are right on the front deck where everyone see's them and I have other types of plants that could go there. Tiger's Eye I have not grown before so I dont know if the seeds will come true. I hope at least some will come back next year! I have also noticed that certain colors of pansies came back this year? Like last year I had all sorts of colors but now I have mostly the basic colors(maybe not as new varieties?) such as white, yellow, red with yellow, the big flowered varieties which are the same as last year, and also like 1 purple. I had those colors last year plus some ones with a little variant to them such as white with purple in the center, that didnt come this year. The pansies do make it through the winter, and sometimes keep flowering, but by summer if I dont cut them back then they are all scraggly. Which I dont care anyway since by summer I'm ready for more thriving summer flowers instead of trying to keep cold-weather flowers alive. |
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| Those Tiger Eyes are stunning. I may have to find some of them this fall. Rosie, what's worse is when the doggone big box stores will bring in a boat-load of pansies in the SPRING and those poor saps who simply do not know any better will fill their shopping carts. That ruffles my feathers. |
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- Posted by GloxiniaLover none (My Page) on Sat, Jun 23, 12 at 15:13
| I know, my local Lowes and Home Depot are still selling pansies!! I see people buying them and I'm wondering what they are thinking |
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