The whole idea that a towering sequoia can be sprung from a single, minute seed is preposterous. It’s not that I think this operation is analogous to those amusing party-trick capsules one can buy for kids, where once the pill-like mite is submerged in water, out springs a dinosaur: a sequoia is not masterfully compressed as a whole, living, full-sized tree into its seed to wow us with its razzle-dazzle emergence.
This is a much subtler, more complex, and truly far more astonishing thing, a seed containing all of the raw material and instructions for growing a full-scale, magnificent conifer. It’s more as if a very small package arrived on the front porch, seemingly from IKEA, yet containing every bolt, panel, screw and window, every necessary iota, for making the whole Empire State Building, and when the box was slit open for a peek inside, the building proceeded to assemble itself carefully and perfectly, over a few years, without any intervention from the recipient. Furthermore, if left to its own devices, it will tend to its own growth and maintenance without any aid from humans at all. Repair and beautification and renewal are included in the package with a tree-lifetime guarantee at no extra cost.
This wonder is replicated uncountable times not only in the massive and miraculous evergreen forests but in every growing thing in the earth that emerges at its birth from a seed. And that’s how, despite my impressive impatience and legendary laziness–which in combination would seemingly guarantee my gardening only with the most mature plants I can finagle onto my property and into the soil, I became enamored of gardening from seed. Oh, I still love the instant gratification of transplants and bedding plants and bare-root behemoths and all of that, but to watch this scarcely-believable process of the infinitesimal exploding (in slow motion, mind you) into the impressively complex is, well, intoxicating.
So I have built up a stash of both collected and purchased seeds that I will attempt to nurture into something more substantial over the seasons, and will play the frivolous farmer, the mad scientist of the weed-patch and the proud parent of whatever scrawny or stupendous growing things I can coax out of those jewel cases, their seeds. I will fuss and fume and furrow both the garden and my brow as I try to conjure their beauties out of those weird and fantastical little lock-boxes of seed and I will talk sternly to the reluctant and coo at the flourishing as though I really had anything at all to do with their excellence when in fact I’m just unleashing them to do what comes naturally in the first place. With appropriate respect for their admirable powers, and love for their bloom and fruitfulness, of course. Of course.
Art-Colored Glasses 
What a very cool post about a very cool thing! I’m so glad you’re honest! – ‘scrawny or stupendous’ – sounds like the exact same odds as my garden! I’m not alone.
You are *so* very not alone! We’ll just have to (ahem!) root for each other! 😉
Hey, no branching out into wordplay; you’d better stem that right now.
Uh-oh, Steve, then don’t look back at my response to your note on my Birthday Card post on the 25th, ’cause I was *really* digging myself in deep on that one. 😉
Giant sequoia from tiny seed, preposterous. Whole hominid from microscopic pairs ♀ and ♂
seeds, stupendous; especially when we consider even cerebral matter of sorts are supposed to form from this combo…
Wacky concept, no??!
There’s something about nurturing something from a form as small and insignificant as a seed to something as beautiful and grand as a full-grown flower that’s so attractive.
I loved this post and the photography and I look forward to seeing photographs with the fruits of your labour in the future. (:
Thanks, my sweet, and I promise I’ll keep everyone filled in on my adventures and the progress of my Green Children!
Seeds, seeds, SEEDS!
I’m ready, let’s go!
You bet your sweet tomatoes! 😀
What a coincidence! My seeds just arrived yesterday from the seedy place. Would that packages from Ikea worked out so magnificently as the tiny Sequoia seed. But, no! As if an Allen wrench will make things all better. I never used to plant seeds, I need so few plants, but I like the gamble of it all. Will they sprout? Transplant? Grow? Fruit? Granted, it may not carry the import & excitement of, say, SuperBowl Sunday, but it works for me.
Football epics? I’d rather watch seeds sprout!! Looking forward to seeing yours at work as well as getting mine underway, John!
I loved your post. I grew up hiking through groves of the Giant Sequoias growing in into my young adulthood. I visit the southern Sierras whenever my travels to California allow. They are so majestic and so powerful – it is amazing that this life springs from such a tiny seed. You note in your post how they survive without human aid, unfortunately it is human aid that is reducing the replacement rate of new trees. I found this in a “wikinfo” posting and it aligns well with my California botany classes. ” The Giant Sequoias are having difficulty reproducing. Sequoia seeds germinate and grow best in open mineral soils with minimal forest litter. Such soils are produced by low-intensity ground fires. Furthermore, Giant Sequoia are more likely to release seeds due to hot air caused by a fire. Due to fire suppression efforts and livestock grazing during the 20th Century, low-intensity fires do not naturally.”
My note – Our (man’s) interference has resulted in less frequent fires that become too intense and essentially sterilize the forest floor.
http://www.wikinfo.org/index.php/Giant_sequoia
Bishop
Such a great post, I’m jealous of your garden! Wonderful pictures, too. x
We’ll see whether I’m being kind or cruel to the little plant-babies by betting on ’em. Hoping for the best. 😀
I’ve never had success with seeds – and that has been my thought since trying it years and years ago. It’s funny how one bad experience planted that seed, no pun intended, into my head. I’ve always admired others growing from seed. I’m so glad you shared this as I am now encouraged to try once again!!
Good! We’ll experiment together and see what we can conjure out of the ground! I look forward to giving it the old college try once again. Live and learn–and live some more, eh!!
If only, if only IKEA furniture assembled itself like the Empire State building in your post. I once spent an unhappy few hours assembling an IKEA bookcase. But the fact that I was able to actually do it was a great achievement. Lots of luck with your gardening from seed
Seriously. IKEA is decidedly a love-hate thing for most of us: crazy hard to assemble stuff but once it’s done we’ve got that piece of affordable furniture for which we were longing.
I wish us all well with both our seed-nurturing and our IKEA-assembling!
Yes, it is amazing that a giant tree can come from a small seed, and that from a small seed comes a human being with a marvelous brain, wondrous eye….
Seeds. Hard to think of anything more, well, *miraculous*. 🙂
I have some seeds from some purple flowers a students brought me. The student did not know the name of the flower, nor did any of the other students. I have looked online without success, I’m going to plant them and see if the flowers want to come out a play. I love your descriptions in this post, Kathryn.
Cool, a plant mystery! It’ll be fun to learn what they turn out to be. 🙂
yup!! it sure is mind blowing! seeds really are the original nano-tech…assembler cells included!
Great post and equally fabulous blog…I’ve read thtough several postings and enjoyed them immensely!
That’s the perfect analogy for them: nano-tech. Now it just seems surprising that it took humans so long to catch up with *that* aspect!
Thank you so much for visiting! I’m having a great time over at ‘your place’ too!
Speaking of plant mysteries, I think you’re right in guessing that the one in the photograph near the end of your post is a Solanum. From the waviness of the leaves, I’d say it’s likely to be Solanum dimidiatum, known as western horse-nettle; that’s common in northern and central Texas—your part and my part—among other places. It might also be the similar Solanum elaeagnifolium, called silver-leaf nightshade.
Then I’d bet on the latter, as the leaves had a very distinct silver cast in brighter light and it was the flowers’ resemblance to enlarged common nightshade blooms that made me see a possible Solanum connection. Thanks for the insight!
If your plant is silvery, then you’re right that it’s highly likely to be Solanum elaeagnifolium. That species is super common in Austin, and at least some plants can be found flowering in almost every month.
Since I have a festering black thumb, I leave the seeds out of the equation, plant the seedlings and let my husband take over from there. It works, after a fashion!
Trust me, it’s not that I have an especially green thumb myself–just that I trust Ma Nature to make up the difference as much as possible and then just sit back and enjoy the adventure of it all.
I wanna be a seed … can I ??? can I ????
Oh wait, I already am.
You are already blooming, my dear! 🙂
I attempted to leave a reply the other day and in my fat finger fumbling it did not slither through to your post. I really enjoyed your observations – the power and life that is in a tiny seed is amazing. The Giant Sequoias are something I am very familiar with having grown-up at the base of the southern Sierras and hiked through beautiful stands of the Redwoods many times. Unfortunately man’s influence is impacting these massive and marvelous trees. The seeds germinate best after a low intensity fire burns off the undergrowth, preparing the soil and the hot air from the fire allows the cone to open to disperse the seeds. .In our infinite wisdom we have prevented forest fires of any type for so many years that when they occur the are destructive rather than regenerative, So, the help they need in most cases is the absence of our protective efforts……Your point is well made….the power in the seed is amazing!
Yes, we are often as dangerous in our good intentions as in our active destruction and negligence. How little we seem to understand nature despite being a part of it! But it gives me hope that there are many like me out there trying to do our tiny part, and many like you teaching us how!
Now I sure hope I give my seed babies a fighting chance–and that the weather will cooperate a bit in the bargain for the year. 🙂
As you can see, I discovered it was not a stray finger of yours but my errant spam filter that sabotaged your earlier note. So I gave that spam filter a good talking to, believe me!
I very much enjoyed reading your wonderful thoughts on the miraculous process of the life bearing seed . I too have sat and contemplated the magnitude of this wonderful little mystery, and how something so small is packed so full of beauty and life….it is truly an awe inspiring wonder. I am happy to have found your blog, and look forward to returning in the near future.
love and light
Celeste
I am so pleased you enjoyed the read, Celeste, and that you share the view of seeds’ wonders. I always rather hope that the more of us take that fancy into the real world the more we can return the world to a richer, greener state of living, if only on our own small scale. I’ll look forward to exploring your blog as well! Thank you for coming by, my friend.
Kathryn
Plant eggs.
Seeds really are plant eggs! Or do you mean I *should* plant eggs, in which case I’ll be excited to see which breeds of chicken grow in my garden!!!
Hey, ki, grow me a Rhode Island Red…
We’ll see if I can have any part in determining the variety, Lindy Lee. Sometimes chickens just do what they want to do, I think, and if that’s the case then we’ll just have to muddle through.