The Seed Collector

When the gardener becomes a collector

Photo by Denise Johnson on Unsplash

I thought I was just a gardener, but it turns out I’m also a seed collector.

The hobby creeped up on me. One day I was happily planting seeds in the dirt and hoping for the best. Now I eagerly check the mailbox to see if the latest batch of seeds has arrived, the likelihood of me actually planting them far out of mind.

Some of these seeds will make their way to my garden, of course. But many will not. Instead, they will rest in pre-germination limbo in carefully labeled envelopes and vials, organized by plant type, then variety, then color. They’ll be stored in a waterproof, light-protected case on a dry shelf in the cool basement, where they’ll stay viable until I decide to put them in the ground or send them to another gardener with a collection of her own.

I don’t remember exactly how I came to participate in seed swapping, exactly, but the hobby has led to a startlingly intense collector’s mentality: I don’t actually need every type of rudbeckia seed known to humankind, but you better believe I’m going to collect them all.

Why do I do it? I could say something here about how collecting seeds is important to the future of food sovereignty, or scientific study, or botanical history, but if I’m being honest with myself, I collect them because I just really love seeds. More specifically, I love their colors, their shapes, their fascinating histories, their funny names that reference locations where they could never grow (“Jupiter sweet pepper”). And I love sharing them with other collector-gardeners who finds such qualities as interesting as I do.

At least once a week I receive a request for seeds from my collection. When it comes in, I make my way to the basement where I find the corresponding vial and parse out a good pinch. I pack the seeds in a padded envelope and add non-machinable postage with hope that the post-office workers (bless them) will heed the special stamp and process the fragile package by hand instead of running it through a machine that could crush the seeds.

In return for my efforts I may get one or two unused stamps for future use, or another type of seed to add to my collection, or a simple but hearty thank-you. On occasion, a recipient will send me a photo of what the seed I sent them has become. It’s like getting an update from a beloved distant cousin about their child graduating college. I barely knew that seed. But it’s nice to know they’re doing well.

As much as I love swapping seeds that I collected from other gardeners, I especially love sending ones from plants I grew myself. Most of the seeds I’ve sent lately have come from my own garden, because we are way down in the fall and there are so many seeds to collect!

The liatris has gone all golden with them:

The seed pods on the common milkweed are exploding:

Seeds from both plants will soon be making their way across the country to a garden in Illinois.

My favorite swap this year involved sending echinacea seeds from my garden here in southern New England to a gardener in my home state of Kansas who’s looking to start a pollinator garden. It felt as if something important came full circle with that swap, as if by sending those seeds I was giving back to the land that made me. I may have whispered “godspeed” to them as I closed the mailbox, a private wish for the seeds to grow up to become healthy plants that live long enough to produce seeds of their own, so that the circle of life—and of swaps—may continue.