You're very kind! I've been looking around and asking around, and I read a lot of
seed vendors saying "your seeds will only last 2-3 years and you have to buy more all the time!"
Then I ASK around, and experienced gardeners say things like "at least 5 years", or "I found a bag of seeds in the shed or garage, completely unprotected, and got decent germination after 10 or more years"!
Sure, not every species lasts forever, but a lot of published lists are WAY too pessimistic.
Or they consider germination rates lower than 85% unacceptable.
Or they want the seed to germinate reliably under THE MOST unfavorable conditions imaginable.
Or they just want you to throw away seeds every year, and never trade or save your own!!
Maybe many seeds lose some vigor every year, and experienced gardeners pamper their seeds, so that even a tired old seed can get its head above ground.
But please don't throw seeds away if they still have a date on the packet! Trade or contribute them to someone and just mention their age. A lot of "trade" packets have been circulating long enough that the envelopes are pretty beaten up, but still germinate!
There was some immature fruit tissue frozen in tundra back in the Upper Pleistocene, and some lab coaxed it to germinate and grow to maturity over 30,000 years later!
http://blogs.discovermagazine....
(Google 30 000 year old flower)
YMMV!
An earlier project germinated and grew a 1,300-year-old lotus seed from northern China.
Another group germinated a 2,000-year-old palm date seed from Israel in 2005.
