I don't think that's true, at least not if the seeds were pretty mature before freezing. After all, seeds dropped from plants in nature return in following years as volunteer plants. And heaven knows many of us have frozen WSown containers through most of winter, and they sprout.

However, if seed has not even set, or gotten a good start toward maturation, it may never be viable. Not sure about that.

Karen

Ditto what Karen says. I actually will not find any mature seeds of Buddleias before the end of December/beginning of January. Right now some pods are big and plump, but they are certainaly not mature and it takes them until then to do so. Took me a while to get used to them.

Asclepias is another. I see some gardeners are already featuring them on their trade pages, but mine are still in green pods. They will probably be ready by the end of November if not a bit later.

Drives me nuts sometimes!! :O)

I'm glad to hear that about the Asclepias. I had a just a few pods ripen and split on my tropical milkweed weeks ago. There are at least 20 more pods on it and also a few on my butterfly weed. They are large but show no signs of opening yet. I thought maybe the dip in temperature stopped them from ripening, maybe it just slows down the process? The Lobelia cardinalis is acting the same way. A few ripe dry pods and then nothing for weeks.

Molanic, I was thinking just the opposite about the Asclepias! Mine had seed pods on them for at least 8 weeks or more, and even though most had turned yellow or brown, none were opening, and I was beginning to think they never would. Within a day or two of our first hard freeze, all of the pods began to open. It seemed like the frost caused the pods to open, but I could be wrong about that. I'm just glad they are all planted within sight of my kitchen window, or all of the seeds would have blown away before I noticed!

Bonnie

The milkweed bugs always get my butterfly weed pods.

Karen