Some questions about wallflowers
Hello,
I planted wallflowers in November and they've been fantastic. So much so that I'm only just getting to removing them. They only have flowers at the very tips and seed pods all the way down, so are looking pretty tatty by now. But the colours have been gorgeous so I've not wanted to get rid of them!
Some questions:
There are lots of seed pods but they're not ripe yet, still very green. If I cut the stems and put them in a paper bag to dry out, do you think I'll get viable seeds? Or do they need to ripen on the plant?
Some of the plants have fresh growth, without flowers - is it worth trying these as cutting material?
Is there any point in cutting them back to tidy them up but leaving them in the ground? I did this with a few of my verbena bonariensis last year and they've come back as beautiful strong plants.
Or should I just ditch the lot, forget seeds / cuttings / keeping them and buy new in autumn as is normal practice?
Thanks for any advice and opinions 
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Posts
IMO / experience.
Seeds will not come true, but may well be viable. [ once they are ripe. They need to be left attached to plant, to achieve this ]
Cuttings will work.
Cutting them back, as long as plant has plenty of leaves, may work, but they will tend to flower earlier and not give a long Spring display.
Last edited: 22 May 2017 11:44:06
When you don't even know who's in the team
S.Yorkshire/Derbyshire border
Thanks so much for that. I thought they probably wouldn't come true, but it was a mix anyway so that's fine. I'll leave some in an inobtrusive place to ripen and see how I go, and will also try both other methods. I will definitely be buying more in the autumn anyway, it just seemed a waste to throw this year's away if I didn't need to and could increase the overall number this way.