Seed collecting and storage for the gardener

In this half-day course, you will learn about the stages of seed collecting and storage that are important to consider from the perspective of a gardener, from assessing ripeness and determining quality to successfully storing seed at home using everyday equipment. You will get hands-on experience in the Botanic Garden with plants, fruits and seeds, as well as behind the scenes access to the Garden’s seed processing and storage facilities. By the end of the session, you’ll be equipped with the knowledge to collect, clean and store seed successfully for use in your own garden, as well as an understanding of how the Botanic Garden conserves plant diversity through its seed collections and research.

Matthew Jeffery is the Botanic Garden’s Expedition Botanist, who leads our worldwide seed collecting expeditions. Matthew worked in horticulture at Kew and as a tree seed collector for the Millennium Seed Bank, the largest wild plant seed storage facility. He was the lead horticulturist on the rock garden at Kew for five years, leading renovations and propagation. At the MSB, he was the UK tree seed collecting field officer, planning and executing seed collecting from our native woody plant species across the UK.