Plant Seeds: Sixteen Branches, From Sprouts to Cacti

Type "plant seeds" into Google and half the results assume you want a snake plant in packet form. Worth clearing that up first, because it changes which branch under this hub you should open.

Snake Plants Don't Come in a Packet

Nearly every classic houseplant (monstera, pothos, snake plant) is propagated from cuttings or division rather than seed, so no honest shop sells a reliable packet. What does work indoors is interior plant seeds like Coleus Rainbow Mixed, which throws red and lime leaf patterns within weeks on a bright windowsill. Pair one with a pot from the wider growshop.

Plant seeds for growers who want something different

If the garden centre rack feels thin, this is your hub. Alongside salad and bedding lines sit ornamentals and ethnobotanicals: Papaver somniferum, Eschscholzia californica, Ipomoea tricolor, Ephedra viridis. Most start on a windowsill with a tray, some compost and patience.

Shop by seed type

Kitchen crops on one side, ornamentals and collector plants on the other. All seeds is the flat list if you would rather scroll the lot, and top 10 plantshop shows what is moving. Branches are sorted by seed type, so you can jump straight to vegetables, herbs, flowers, cacti or exotics.

Kitchen crops, windowsill to allotment

Vegetable seeds covers the workhorses, Purple Haze F1 carrot, Cherry Tomato Supersweet 100 F1 and Pole Bean Neckarkönigin, while fruit seeds and exotic seeds hold the odd ones like Cucumis metuliferus and Physalis ixocarpa. Chilli pepper seeds runs from Dwarf Pepper Mixed to Sweet Pointed Pepper Palladio F1. For speed, microgreens and sprouting beat everything else: mizuna and daikon radish in a tray of compost, or mung bean and rocket sprouts in a jar of water, rinsed daily or they turn sour.

Garden and tea herb seeds

Eschscholzia californica self-seeds happily in poor UK soil and keeps throwing paper-thin orange flowers all summer. Wormwood (Artemisia absinthium) smells bitter when you rub a leaf and handles drought better than most of the herb seeds branch. Stevia rebaudiana and Mucuna pruriens want real warmth, so treat them as pot plants under glass. More of that sort sits in medicinal plant seeds.

How to choose the right seeds for your space

Windowsill only? Stick to microgreens, sprouts and interior plant seeds. A balcony or cold frame opens up chillies, herbs and pot-grown exotics, while open ground suits flower seeds (Flower Seed Mix for Bees, Cornflower Blue Ball) and companion planting rows. Check whether a line is open-pollinated or an F1 hybrid, since only the first gives seed worth saving.

How to germinate seeds successfully

Most of this lot germinates the same way: damp, 20-25°C, then left alone. Coco germination plugs hold water without going swampy, and the Seed Propagator adds a vented lid, the difference between an even tray and half a tray. Sow at the depth on the packet, leave light-germinating seed on the surface, and harden off anything started indoors; hard-coated types may want scarification or cold stratification first.

Storing seeds so they stay viable

Old seed is the usual reason nothing shows. Keep leftovers cool, dark and dry in a sealed packet rather than on a steamy kitchen shelf; most vegetable and flower seed stays good for 2-3 years. Label the year and sow the oldest first.

The Slow Shelves, and What We'd Sow This Week

Two branches ask for patience. Cacti covers Echinopsis pachanoi, Peruvian Torch and Lophophora williamsii from seed, and Lophophora is closer to a decade before it looks like the photo, so buy a rooted plant if you want size now. Psychoactive plant seeds holds the ethnobotanical side, including Argyreia nervosa if you came for LSA seeds; those are sold as ornamental seed, and we publish no preparation or dosing notes. Starting from nothing? Microgreens now, Cornflower Mixed in April.

Freshness, packaging and discreet UK delivery

Seed leaves us dry and sealed, so it arrives in the state it left the shelf. Orders go out in plain packaging with nothing on the outside about the contents, and UK delivery is quick. Stock rotates often, so you are not sowing an old harvest.