I've just started saving seed during the past year...but only from small stuff--no trees or shrubs. Right now I'm waiting for my winter lettuce to bloom and hoping I can figure out how to collect the seed from it. I started doing it to save money.

I bought a rather expensive purple oxalis recently that's been blooming with pretty pink flowers. I'm disappointed that I can't find any seed on it. The flowers just bloom and fade and don't seem to have any seed. Unless they're microscopic and I can't see them...??

Sure do aftermidnight! I save all my seeds! I even collect seeds when I'm out and about. I do buy a lot of seeds too. I like unusual hard-to-find plants that I have to start from seed. I've started a lot of stuff from seed this year - foxgloves(all colors), hollyhocks(mostly single heirloom varieties) black velvet nasturtium, black bachelor buttons, love-in-a-mist, chianti sunflowers, love-lies-bleeding. Lots more I'm probably forgetting about too. This means I'll have a lot of seeds to share and trade with you guys!
(aftermidnight - I know you like that Black Hollyhock, I have lots of seed from it left if you're interested. Supposedly it is seed from Thomas Jefferson's estate...??? It is actually acting like a perennial, it came back, and has 4 stalks forming, yeah!)

tree lover, when the lettuce has flowered and the seed heads are mature and starting to open, I cut the seedhead off and put it in a paper bag to finish drying. When dry the seeds fall out when you give the bag a shake, then you just have to separate the seed from the chaff.

A......

I save my own too! I have a photo box (the kind you buy at the craft store for $4) that's filled with them.
I even tried saving seeds from vegetables I buy at the store, but I haven't planted them yet, so i don't know if they're viable. But my grandmother used to save her own seeds - she had a garden the size on a small plot (that now has a house on it!). How I wish she was still here - I imagine I could learn a lot from her.
In fact a lot of the seeds I have came from the seed exchange forum. Aftermidnight, I do have black hollyhock seeds also (but they're from 2005), if you want to try them.

Estelle

I save my seeds. I have a separate mini fridge set aside just for storing seeds and refrigerating my chicken eggs. I also use it to stratify seeds that I am getting ready to sow. I have so many seeds that sometimes I have to put some in the crisper in our main refrigerator. This spring has been particularly "seedy" and I even had to put some in the main part of our main refrigerator. My husband kept asking me if I needed "that bag", so I finally made room for it down in the crisper so that he'd stop being tempted to throw away "that bag" of seeds. I think this coming fall will be worse than ever because I have really expanded my selection of heirloom flowers, so I'll have even more seeds to save than usual. :-O

I too, save seeds, especially of the heirloom varieties, flowers, trees and veggies. My freezer is full of seeds that I have collected.

Barb

Yes, I have my own little seed company and save my seeds like a maniac. We have had a seed trade on this forum for the last two years. Everyone saves seeds and swops 'em. I have some gorgeous things growing right now: pink flower chives and pink monarda from Hawthorne Cottage "across the pond", white salvia, oh, all kinds of things!

GGG

I save seeds too. I enjoy participating in some of the seed trades and round robins in the Fall and Winter. It is a lot of fun and something to do when there is nothing else to do outside in the garden! It is a constant learning experience though because some of the seeds are harder to collect and clean than others but it is always fun!

I have grown from seed since I was a kid, and started saving my own seed more than 25 years ago -- primarily a veggie gardener originally. Now, there's nothing more fun than taking handfuls of my favorite annual flowers and tossing them around the gardens to direct-sow. :)

Yes I just took three bags of seed to share at the Extension office.Usually I toss em back in the garden,this is Florida and I try to keep the garden going!

pacnwgrdngirl, thanks for the kind offer of hollyhock seed, I'll attempt to send you an email, this function wasn't working a couple of weeks ago, maybe it's fixed now.

A......

I've actually avoided doing it for one simple reason: I haven't found the right space to devote to starting them. You really have to have a "production" area available to sort them, store them, start them, harden them off, and get them in the garden. In a small suburban garden, finding that kind of room can be tricky.

But I'm so thankful that people like you folks are saving your seeds. It's important. This year I plan on saving seed and sending them on to anyone who asks. I'm gonna have a bunch.

Estelle, just read through all the responses, thank you for your kind offer of black hollyhock seed, I think I may have some coming my way. I do appreciate your offer though.

A......

Yes, I save seeds, mostly from flowers, but did Bull's Blood beet (took two years for it to seed; it's a biennial) and got a baby-food size jar full, I also do some heirloom tomatoes.
This year I had salvia, vinca, ageratum, poppies, zinnias, kiss-me-over-the-garden gate, and hollyhocks, lots more that I can't think of right now.

I also did daylily seeds for the first time a couple of years ago. I had them in nursery rows in the garden ready to bloom this year and then got blasted with the hard freezes several days in a row, so no blooms this year.

Lots of fun to see what you end up with.

Not much of a seed saver here, but I admire those who do, and know that the heirloom varieties I love are there because of folks like you. So, thank you! Future generations of gardeners will send their thanks, too.

Rosefolly