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Most of the plants
for sale at Native Here Nursery are grown from seeds. The goal of
the nursery is for plants from native stands throughout Alameda and
Contra Costa Counties to be available to customers from those
communities. That means that small amounts of seeds need to be
collected from many locations, all about the same time of year--May
through September.
You can help! One
way is by letting the nursery know the exact location of good stands
of wildflowers and other native plants while they are still in
bloom.
Once we know where
they are, we can either provide instruction for you to collect some
of the seed, or arrange to come collect it, or to collect it with
you so that you will be comfortable doing the collection in future
years.
If you collect seed
for us, most grassland species and dry fruits go into coin envelopes
or paper bags. The species name, date of collection, where it was
collected and collector’s name need to be written on the envelope
or bag, clearly. Many woodland species and fleshy fruits are best
collected in baggies and refrigerated immediately. This is also a
good method for acorns. The species, date, location and collector
then need to be written on a label and attached so the information
is readable, doesn’t get soggy, but stays with the collection.
Self adhesive labels on the outside of the baggie work well.
Remember, if you
order plants and provide the seed, or buy plants we propagate from
your collection, the plants are half the usual price. We appreciate
your assistance.
Tuesday Morning Seed Collecting
We have made some magical discoveries while seed collecting on Tuesday morning! While hiking the
Huckleberry Trail in late September we found loads of beautiful
juicy huckleberries.
We collected some golden chinquipin further down the trail too.
While traveling together on trails in the east bay hills, we have been collecting
(among other things), Clarkia, Calochortus, Epilobium, and
several kinds of oaks. We went to Mitchell Canyon in early October and found rose hips from
Rosa californica.
There was Lonicera hispidula on all the trails but look at this succulent one we found on Rifle Range trail in mid October. I could not resist a shot of the sunlight shining on the seeds of this narrow-leafed milkweed we found in Briones late in October.
Tuesday seed collection runs from May through October. Meet at 9 am at Native Here gate.
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Rupertia physoides
