Collecting wildflowers seeds is this easy – and free
11-9-2025
Translation: Elicia Payne
Pictures: Anna Sandner
Now is the perfect time to collect wildflower seeds. After a little ramble in nature, you can be sure to find colourful flowers for next year and help biodiversity at the same time – it’s super easy and doesn’t cost a thing.
Summer’s drawing to a close. The brightly coloured flower meadows that stretch throughout Hamburg are gradually losing their colours. The flowers may be withering – but something precious lies dormant inside them: the seeds for next year. And that’s exactly what I want to get my hands on today. I got the idea from Hamburg’s city park association, which invites people to collect wildflower seeds in late summer and fall. And my inner botanist couldn’t miss out on that.
Flower seeds galore: self-service in wild meadows
Half a dozen people gather to stroll through the wildflower meadows of the city park under expert guidance and pick out the late summer treasures. Everyone can gather as much as they want – and take their goods home with them. The idea’s simple: next year, Hamburg will be even wilder and more colourful next year.
We wander through the meadows for two hours, learning something new at every turn. From chicory to campion and the bristly, proud viper’s bugloss, my bags fill up faster than I expected. To begin with, I collect some species separately in small paper bags. After a while, I start a «mixed bag». There are so many different flowers that I don’t want to waste time sorting. Plus, I’ll mix the seeds again when I sow them anyway.
Chicory, corncock, birdsfoot trefoil: the variety’s gigantic
Again and again I stop, marvel, explore possible seeds and continue collecting. It feels a bit like I’ve walked into a store and can just pull whatever I like off all the shelves without having to pay. At least my hunter-gatherer genes are coming in handy. By the time I finish examining my colourful harvest of seeds, I’m over the moon: chicory, corncock, kidney vetch, wild carrot, campion, viper’s bugloss – and my personal highlight: a few poppy capsules too! I purposely searched for them because my own wildflower meadow had hardly any poppies this year and I love seeing the red splashes of colour.
Wildflower supply – now is peak season
Late summer is the best time to collect them. The seed heads are just waiting to be taken away. My tip is, if you want to go and pick some, don’t forget gloves and scissors, otherwise some species such as viper’s bugloss and wild carrot can really prick you.
You collect the dried blossoms, then you can extract the seeds from them for storing. With the flowers I initially sorted and separated, I went to the trouble of breaking open the flowers one by one to get at the seeds. Depending on the species, this is sometimes easier, sometimes more difficult. So I made it easier for myself with the mixed bunch: I put everything in a bread bag, flattened it, kneaded it a bit and shook it until the seeds had loosened. Then all you have to do is remove the large flower parts and you’re done.
I used small envelopes and slightly larger sandwich bags to store them. To prevent mould, you should pack your goods in air-permeable packaging. Even if the seeds are best planted in the fall, you can save them until the following spring.
If you don’t want to collect the seeds yourself, you can, of course, simply have them delivered to your home:
Book tip for wildflower fans
Everything look the same to you? No problem, you can have a guide at your hand.
«Was blüht denn da?» («What’s that blooming there?») by Kosmos offers portraits of over 870 native wild and garden flowers, with precise drawings and brief descriptions of their characteristics. There are also clear flower keys for quick identification according to flower colour, location or flowering time. What’s particularly useful is its robust finish, so you can take the book out with you and it’ll withstand a damp rucksack. The weighty plant book already served me well in my biology studies. It still helps me today when I’m not quite sure what I have in front of me. Something I find particularly helpful are the references to possible mix-ups so that you don’t accidentally reach for the poisonous doppelganger.
Practical tip: how to create a wild meadow
- Store seeds in a dry place at home.
- Thin out the soil (dethatch or dig lightly).
- In the fall, sow in a wide-spread pattern and only press down lightly – many wildflowers need light!
- No fertiliser, little to no watering.
- Wait patiently for spring: it usually takes until May or June for the first splashes of colour to appear.
I’m absolutely delighted with my yield and I’m already looking forward to next year’s beautiful flowers.
Header image: Anna Sandner
Anna Sandner
Senior Editor
Anna.Sandner@galaxus.deScience editor and biologist. I love animals and am fascinated by plants, their abilities and everything you can do with them. That's why my favourite place is always outside - somewhere in nature, preferably in my wild garden.
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