Lupins from seed

Can you grow lupins from seed please, some of my lupin flowers have died and left what looks like seed pods where the flowers where, are these seeds? can I plant them ? if so what do I do, thanks

Hi Caroline, yes you can but you must let the seeds ripen first.  Leave the flowering stalk on the plant until the pods turn brown, then cut them off and you can collect the seed by opening the pods.  You can sow them straight away if you have a coldframe to overwinter the young plants in, or save them and sow in February in small pots on a windowsill indoors, or March outdoors.  Soak the seeds for 24 hours before sowing. Overwintered plants will flower in the summer, but those sown in March may not flower until the next year.  The flowers may not look like those on the original plant, especially if that was an F1 hybrid variety.

Thanks a lot Bob, i will now take off the flowers that have turned brown and save thenm somewhere until february and then sow them indoors as you say.

i find the best time to plant them is from now to end september so they are strong enough to flower next year. I planted seeds this february and have lovely young plants but they will not flower until next year. I keep summer/autumn planted seedlings in a cool greenhouse/ sheltered coldframe for the winter as they do not like frosts to much but they dont need a lot of heat over the winter either. good luck they are worth it.

Thanks trifid house, I will do just that as I am so impatient planting the seeds appeals to me, I dont have a green house but I will keep them in the spare bedroom on the windersill, i did that with sweetpea seeds last year and they are flowering wonderfully now.

Watch out for mice - I once had a whole sowing fail when some creature dug up and ate all the seeds. I now sow them earlier so that they germinate in the polytunnel where my resident black cat is on guard! Autumn sowing is great but our winters regularly hit -15° (this year -20°) so I tend to start earlier!

Hi Caroline,

Planted some mixed  lupin seeds a few weeks ago and they are doing really well.Their true leaves have already grown.They look already like tiny lupins

They were sown in individual pots outside and left in coldframe, only to protect them from the rain. I'll be collecting seed off the plants as soon as they ripen.

 Think this is the time to sow them