Shirley is an avid propagator, especially of seeds, growing plants for her own garden, sharing with fellow gardeners and with propagation in her veins, she enjoys experimenting with more unusual and rare seeds.    

Shirley is delighted to share her techniques, tips and ideas at a Seed Collecting Workshop. We will take seeds out of their over-wintered cold, dark storage and prepare them for a new season of life and reproduction and so all Workshop participants become part of this fascinating plant cycle.

Autumn Seed Collecting Workshop:

Seed collecting can become a bit of an obsession, there are people who would not pass a plant without ‘borrowing’ a seed or more and isn’t that a wonderful thing for that plant to find a new home somewhere else.  After all, there is only one aim in a fertile plant’s life and that is to grow, flower, reproduce, set seed and either die or go into dormancy, it has done its thing!   Plants will go to extraordinary lengths in order to get their flowers pollinated and have their seeds spread far and wide and they have adapted due to some difficult circumstances, to still carry on the legacy of their parent plant. 

What participants will learn:

Participants will learn how to recognise when a seedpod is ready for collecting, how to store the pods to dry out and how to store seeds after drying completely ready for over-winter storage.

For those seeds that require Stratification (period of low temperature and moisture) they need to be sown in late Autumn/early Winter, allowing them the natural cold of winter to break their dormancy.   As climate changes and our Autumn temperatures are remaining relatively mild, 

You will learn how to give these seeds the periods of cold/warmth that are needed for success.

General care of Seeds over winter. 

Members €20, Non members €25