Collecting seeds for a small green roof at this time of year (July) is a good idea. The early flowers are turning and their seed pods are ripe for collecting. Further collections can be undertaken for late flowering plants in August and late September.
A bowl of freshly collected seeds
This morning I collected my third batch this year. After the overnight rain they are quite wet. So they are now in the sun on my balcony. Even if they are dry when collected, do place in a bowl or tray in direct sunlight. A lot of the seeds will still be ‘green’ and need drying. Or throw them onto your roof straight away. The seeds in the photograph above will not be going onto the small balcony green roof behind the bowl. They will be spread on several large green roofs in the centre of London.
Wildflower edge from wild seed collection
Seeds – what and why to collect
Where you find wildflowers growing in really tough conditions try to collect these. Stony meadows, cliff edge and brownfield sites will have wildflowers that are conditioned to the stresses that can be found on a small green roof – the seeds will hopefully produce wildflowers that are drought and wind tolerant. This is why collecting wild seed can be beneficial to a small green roof. The new growth next year will add to the diversity and also the robustness of the plant community.
Within the online guide there is a list of good plants to seed on a green roof. This is a good starting point when choosing which wildflowers to collect from.
Responsible Collecting
Seed collecting should be done responsibly – do not collect rare plants and only take a small amount from the area. Don’t:
- take all of the seed from a given plant in the area. Just take a few and leave more to re seed next year
- if you are not sure whether the plant is rare don’t pick it
Spread the love
Once on the roof the wildflowers will hopefully bloom and send the love to the wider area. Spreading the love from the roof.
