There is a lot involved in determining what to do. I'll try to give a brief outline here, but for more information, it is good to research the particular plant in question. Some plants have perfect flowers (both male and female parts) so they need nothing more than a little wind to pollinate themselves. These kinds often do not cross pollinate at a high rate, most tomatoes and beans for example. To ensure purity, you can bag the blossoms right from the start though since no insect is needed. You can also separate by distance to ensure purity. Some plants, the distance is not too far especially those that are self pollinating, but may attract some insects like peppers. Having other flowering plants between to act as a buffer zone helps immensely as the bees and other insect will make stops along the way. Many plants of course do need insect pollination. The amount of distance needed for purity varies a lot between genuses. Having a nice sized grouping of the same plant and no others of that type in your garden will help a lot as the insects will visit many plants in the grouping which of course lowers cross pollination. Some plants like say sunflowers have a long distance of at least 1/2 mile to keep pure, and if you have neighbor growing them way down the road, you of course can have some crossing. So for those types hand pollinating and bagging would be the way to go. If is isn't a rare type, it might not be worth the trouble. That of course is a decision to be made about the particular variety. Not as many, but some plants are wind pollinated and the distance for those to be separated can be miles. Bagging is completely necessary. Then there are those plants which must be pollinated from another plant of the same species or no seeds form. This doesn't happen as often with flowers, but there are some that will not develop seeds without another plant nearby. Apples are a well known example of this. Hope this helps some, Remy

I can see it now, people across the country standing out in the community gardens applying personal massagers to their tomato plants. I wonder what the police reports would say? or ...Gardener's trying to be incognito with sunglasses and hats on asking the clerk at the local adult shop "Which model would work best for my pollinating my blossoms?"

Bon, : ) You are so sweet. I grow a gazillion different kinds of flowers every year, but the ones that grow every year are the ones that reseed and come back on their own. I do try to renew them with fresh seeds purchased every few years (like, for example, with new Laura Bush seeds from Wildseed Farms). I want flowers that will self-sow and perpetuate themselves fairly well over time because I don't want to start over from scratch every year. Many perennials can be iffy in clay. They'll thrive for a few years and then an extra hot, dry year (like 2011) will kill them, or an extra cool, extra wet year (like 2007) will get them. Those two extreme types of weather have done a good job on their own of weeding out perennials that cannot tolerate my clay in both extremes. So, when I find something that thrives in both types of extremes, I grow lots of it...hence, the huge poppy population for example. I am fairly picky about flowers----they have to be able to thrive in amended clay with little to no irrigation, no fertilizer beyond what compost and other organic soil amendments provide, only minimal deadheading (because I stay so busy harvesting and canning), no pampering of any kind.....and they need to stay disease-free. That means that I don't bother even planting anything reputed to be picky, persnickety or needing pampering. It also means the flowers I grow bring me much joy because they aren't stressing me out by being high-maintenance. And, yes, many of my favorites either are wildflowers or herbs, and they won't die and you can't kill them,making them perfect for a gardener who has lots of fruits, herbs and veggies and not all that much free time to devote to flowers. Having said all that, I'll give a variety of flower three years to prove its worth if I really want to grow it. If I cannot get it to succeed here with minimal care after three tries, I'm done with it and move on. If I cannot get it to grow at our place after 3 years of trying, I say "it won't grow here" and give up on that one. No one loves the wildflowers more than I do because they are so danged tough. A lot of flowering herbs are the same way---just tough, tough, tough beyond belief. I've been having fun planting flowers that need really well-draining soil in the back garden's sandy area the last couple of years because I cannot grow those in the front garden. However, anything I plant back there may (or may not) be eaten by voles in July and August when they exhaust their supply of whatever the heck they eat down in the woodland before they migrate upland to our garden plot. Wildflowers are kinda perfect for this area because I can watch our pastures and see if those wildflowers survive all summer. If they do, then the voles likely aren't eating them. I love agastache but haven't been able to grow it in the clay soil out front. Last year, Agastache "Blue Fortune" performed wonderfully in the soil out back and, as far as I know, the voles didn't eat the plants unless they have eaten the roots this winter. 'll see if the plants come back this year. If they do, I might plant some other agastache varieties back there. I am in love with all the plants at High Country Gardens but most of them need very well-drained soil that I don't have. So, if I can find something like agastache that the pine voles don't bother, I can order some of the different varieties from HCG and grow them back there, which would make me enormously happy. My daffodils down by the front driveway gate are about to bloom. I am so excited that something is about to bloom because so far the cool-season wildflowers have been really skimpy this year, and I think it is because of all the recent cold weather. The prettiest wildflowers on our property this year are the dandelions. People who love a perfect green carpet-like lawn don't like dandelions, but I love their cheerful yellow flowers, especially when they are the only thing blooming.

Just saving the seeds from a diverse pepper patch won't guarantee you will grow a pepper plant true to the mother plant so not a good Idea if you care. Not also a good Idea if the plant is a hybrid to save any of the seeds because you won't get a true replica to the original plant. You can isolate the plants you want to save seeds from and try to collect seeds but still doesn't mean the pepper flower wasn't pollinated by a flying pollinator moving across your garden or yard. Odds are low but still could happen. The best solution for true seeds is to bag some flowers right before they bloom and once they bloom hand pollinate and re-bag until the blossoms fall off, and then tag them. Peppers are self pollinating so you shouldn't have much of a problem. Now I know for a fact Tomato flowers are only viable for a day or two, but not sure about peppers so hand pollinate as soon as they bloom. I took seeds from a heirloom open pollinated Beaver dam plant packed in a patch with a dozen other types of pepper plants many years ago and grew them. they weren't anything like the original, the shape and size was right but flavor wasn't even close and rather nasty.