Few plants captivate gardeners quite like lavender. With its vibrant purple blooms, intoxicating fragrance, and versatility in the garden, it’s no wonder lavender is a favorite from backyard plots to full-fledged herb farms.
If you’ve fallen in love with lavender and want to expand your collection without buying new plants every year, learning to collect your own seeds is the perfect next step. Not only is it cost-effective, but it’s also incredibly satisfying to grow lavender from seed you’ve harvested yourself.
Let’s dive into the what, when, and how of collecting lavender seeds—plus a few extra tips to make your experience even more successful.
How Does Lavender Produce Seeds?
Before you start snipping stems, it helps to understand how lavender sets seed.
Lavender plants reproduce through pollination. However, not all lavender varieties will produce viable or “true” seeds. Many popular lavenders, like Lavandula x intermedia (‘Grosso’ or ‘Provence’, for example), are hybrids. These may produce seeds that are sterile or won’t grow into plants that resemble the parent.
If you want to grow lavender from seed, start with an open-pollinated variety like English lavender (Lavandula angustifolia). It’s more likely to produce viable seeds that grow true to type.
When to Harvest Lavender Seeds
Timing is everything when it comes to seed saving. Harvesting too early means immature seeds that won’t germinate. Wait too long, and they may drop to the ground before you get a chance to collect them.
After blooming, the flowers fade from vibrant purple to a dull brown or gray. They'll dry out and become papery or brittle to the touch.
If you gently tap a flower head and seeds fall out, you're good to go. You might even notice some small, dark seeds already falling to the soil—a sign you need to collect soon or risk losing them.
If you’re unsure whether the seeds are viable, crack a few open. Mature seeds will be hard and dark-colored inside. Immature ones are often white or soft.
Harvest in the morning once the dew has evaporated, but before the heat of the day. This helps prevent condensation in storage.
How to Collect Lavender Seeds
Use the following steps to collect seeds from your lavender flowers:
1. Extract the Seeds
There are two main extraction methods you can use:
1. The Manual Method
This will get you every last seed, but it'll take a lot longer.
Hold a dried flower head between your fingers and roll or crush it gently over a clean surface like a plate or baking sheet. Tiny, dark brown to black seeds—about the size of ground pepper—will fall out along with dried petals and chaff.
2. The Shake Method
This method isn't as precise, but it's quick and efficient.
Place flower heads or full stems into a brown paper bag, large bowl, or ubiquitous Home Depot bucket. Shake, tap, or roll them around with your hands to dislodge the seeds.
You can also rub the flower heads through a fine mesh sieve, like this one on Amazon, to help separate seeds from chaff.
2. Clean the Seeds
Use a fine mesh strainer or a flat surface and gently blow across it to winnow away light, papery debris. For precision, you can use tweezers or your fingers to pick out any leftover chaff.
Don’t worry if it’s not perfect—a little plant material won’t hurt, but the cleaner the seeds are, the better they’ll store.
Seed Storage
After collecting your lavender seeds, proper storage is essential to ensure they stay viable until planting time. Seeds are living things, even in dormancy, and poor seed storage can cause them to lose their ability to germinate. Here’s how to keep your harvested seeds in peak condition.
The three enemies of seed longevity are heat, moisture, and light. Exposure to any of these can drastically reduce germination rates. To protect your lavender seeds:
- Use breathable seed containers like paper envelopes, small cardboard boxes, or mesh seed bags like these on Amazon.
- Place the containers in a sealed jar or airtight container with a desiccant packet (like these silica gel ones on Amazon) or even a few grains of dry rice to absorb any stray moisture.
- Store in a cool, dark location, such as a basement, cupboard, or refrigerator (not the freezer). Ideally, temperatures should stay between 32 F and 50 F (0 C - 10 C).
Stratification
Lavender seeds are notorious for low and uneven germination. But there’s a trick to improving your odds - stratification. To mimic the winter dormancy lavender seeds would naturally experience in the wild, follow these steps:
- Moisten a paper towel and wring out excess water.
- Sprinkle the seeds onto the towel, then fold it up and seal it in a plastic bag.
- Place the bag in the refrigerator for 3 to 4 weeks.
After stratification, sow the seeds in a well-draining seed mix and place them under grow lights or in a sunny window. Be patient—lavender is slow to germinate, but with a little care and a lot of light, those tiny sprouts will emerge.
