I planted celebrity tomato 1998
morning glory heavenly blue X2 1989
wildflower mix X2 American mix 1997
wildflower X2 texas bluebonnet 1997
delphinium 1997
celery from someone else copy right date only 1999

I was shocked and surprised and only expecting one or two to sprout so I dumped them all into on dirt filled container.
I now have lots of sprouts expecting more as some things take longer to germinate.

Wow. I'm surprised to see so many of the morning glory seeds sprouted! And I would have expected to see at least a few tomatoes. I planted a bunch of very old tomato seeds (1986!) and got a LOT of seedlings from them! Not sure what the other sprouts are.

mixed bag chia pet

I planted 10 year old tomato seeds this year and had very high germination.

When I'm afraid I won't get good germination, I always speak lodly as I water the seeds for the first time:

"Oh, I'm sure THESE seeds won't spout well.
They're TOO OLD and I can't expect many to come up."

Then they go out of their way to prove me wrong.

Hmmm, I should have tried that when I planted those Cobaea seeds......which are ignoring me. Grrr. Oh well, I'll make up for their lack with MG's. To which I shall speak loudly! Does swearing at them help?

I'll have to try that. I just talk to my plants after they germinate. C'mon, you can grow. Nice and big.

I heard rock music will help

Very cool.

The tomato seeds I used this year are a few years old, not nearly that old, but I expect they'll sprout.

Karen

Speaking of seeds sprouting, (a bit OT, because these were fresh seeds) I ordered some new-to-me seeds, for Felecia, and was annoyed to find only 12 seeds in the packet. Grumble, grumble, so I planted them all. I was very pleasantly surprised that every single one germinated!

It would be helpful if people also told how the seeds were stored.
Then there should be a "sticky" list or lists of which seeds germinated after say 5 years, 10 years etc.
Just an idea?

I don't think we need any more stickies. There are already 4 of them, so new posts end up way down the page. And one of those is labeled seed longevity chart. Posts could be added to that....

Karen

Agree with Karen about stickies on this one.

But more importantly, I share Caroline's plea for real, meaningful information.
Just think how much more educational this site could be if members could add pertinent data to their mostly social posts.

That would definitely be useful information, but I'm not sure where we could put it to make it easy to find. The database would be the obvious place, but it would have to be posted as a comment.

I agree with @woofie, the database would be the best place.
It is tiresome to wade through stickies looking for a single piece of information.

I agree, the database would be the best place for that information. It could easily be added as a comment or under propagation.

Karen

That is a weakness of the current database.
Not enough info., but I guess we are to blame.

It's still very young, and it'll grow in due time.

Karen

Here's the next Geico commercial---
"Did you know you can save 15 minutes on car insurance?"
Well, did you know seeds are smarter than us humans?
After we humans have destroyed and exhausted mother earth of it's elements, seeds will just wait until we are all gone and start sprouting and have the last laugh.

Oh Woofie, i love felicia. i think when I grew them i collected seeds too but i haven't had them in years now. They are so dainty,