One of the best ways to propagate your garden is to collect seeds from your own plants. Annuals lend themselves especially well to seed collecting. It’s generally easier to increase perennials by division but there are a few that are well adapted to growing from collected seeds.

Successful seed gathering starts with timing. Watch for the flowers to turn to seed heads and wait for the sun to dry them. It is especially crucial to pick the seed heads before they explode and release their seeds.

After picking the seed heads collect the seeds by placing the heads in a paper bag. Hang the bag up and in a couple of weeks you will find the bag filled with thousands of seeds.

Some excellent candidates for seed collection include cosmos, echinacea, coreopsis, sunflowers and verbena bonariensis.