I love the challenge and accomplishment of bringing a little brown speck to life. That always seems like a complete miracle, and I get to nurse the little babies along under lights in my bedroom. Sometimes i'm even reluctant to let them go outside!

For some reason, I find seeds and seedlings to be thrilling examples of participating in the miracle of life, but houseplants just seem like a chore. If I didn't start it from seed, it's like taking care of someone else's child. That sounds illogical even to me, but there it is.

Besides ...After losing whole trays of perennial seeds as a newbie, stubburness kicked in!

When I look longingly at some plant in a nursery, that I've found hard to start from seed, just BUYING it seems like giving up and admitting failure. The satisfaction of starting from seed doubles or triples if it took me 2-3 years of trying, just to get any surviviors.

Establishing bare root plants sent by generous online friends still seems "challenging" enough to me that I feel satisfaction when they live through the first winter. I'm not sure why that seems different from bringing home a potted plant from a nursery.

Maybe "keeping them alive" seems enough like "giving them life" that it satisifes my maternal instincts.

And I bought patented baby perennial Lavatera once, online, that were so small when they arrived that it felt like raising them from seed. It took months indoors before they were clearly going to live. That was my first year gardening in decades, so their survival really was a kind of miracle. (It turned out that either the online nursery mis-labelled them, or they all totally reverted before their first blooming ... either way, they are pretty and hardy where I live.)

Once my SO brought home some pansy transplants, and once she talked me into buying a peony. But they seem like houseguests instead of "my children"!

I also seem to get some kind of collector's pleasure out of having a big box of seeds I hope to find garden room for "some day". Like a treasure chest of magic, genetic jewels.

I'm with Corey on this one!

There is no greater satisfaction for me than going from this:


to this!


Or going from this:


to this,


to this,


or this,


and ending up with this!


Team Seeds -- DEFINITELY!

Seedy Gardeners unite! You have nothing to lose but your dormancy.

I love your trays of Solo cups. I've mostly shifted over to inserts (trays of cells or "six-packs") but I'm not sure it's an improvement.

oooooooooooooooo, Rick, I love it!

Here's out T-Shirt Slogan: "I'm a SEEDY Character!"

Totally gone to seed in my case.

I've seed better days?

"Now I've seed it all!"

And, the winner iiiiiiiiiiissss: ding, ding, ding, ding, ding,

"All Things Plants Began With Seeds!"

Those are such inspiring pictures! Every year I plant over 5,000 daylily seeds (directly) out in my field and am just in awe at the wonderful surprises that are all wrapped up in those little black pearls! Here are a couple of pic of the daylilyfield





The second pic is of my new worker that just LOVED getting rid of the weeds and even wanted to work in the rain! I found her late in the season so she had waaay more weeds than anyone should ever have to deal with! She is truly my 'gardener extraordinaire'!
The last pic is of myself in the field collecting my blossoms in a basket to bring back into town with me for my "show and tell" , making rounds to many of the businesses who really love to see them!
Most of the seeds take between two and 3 years to show their blooms, but when it is done every year, it just feels like I see something new every year...and every day from late June into Sept. Christmas in July is what I call it!

I know this is an old post, but I'm new to this forum and first time I'm reading it. I am also a seed person because
I also get satisfaction looking at a beautiful flower blooming and thinking how it came from such a tiny seed. They
are truly little miracles from God.
I often think of this when I see my big tomato plant, with nice big fruit. How such a small seed it was when I first
put it in some pro-mix.
Another reason I am a seed person is because of the cost of plants. They are getting more and more expensive.
With just a few packs of seeds you can have a lot of color and veggies in your garden.

I have never done a plant trade with anyone. Not because I'm against it, but because I'm afraid I wouldn't pack
it right and they would be DOA.

Hi, Linda. Welcome to NGA!

I totally agree about " little miracles" and plants being expensive. AND wondering how anyone ever packs a plant for shipping so it arrives as a plant!

I would rather urge you to look into seed swaps, listed under "Tools and Apps", but I remember there was an article, once upon a time ...

Oh wow! I found three.

I went to:
- "Community" (top menu bar)
- - "Community Ideas"
- - - searched on ... pack plants shipping

... and found ...

All About Packaging Plants for Shipping
http://garden.org/ideas/view/t...

Preparing Daylilies for Shipping
http://garden.org/ideas/view/t...

Packaging Sedum and Semp for Mailing
http://garden.org/ideas/view/v...

But it's a lot easier to pack 100 packets of seeds than one small plant!