Seed bombs

Roen

Hi,
Just wondering has anyone used Irish seed bombs here?
Thinking of scattering a few hundred along the ditches and edges of the garden. Perhaps even sectioning off parts of the lawn and having at it there too.
Cheers.

magicbastarder

seed bombing is a concept more for spreading seed in otherwise derelict or unused property, as i've always understood it. the 'bomb' is the delivery mechanism, to allow it to be thrown.
if it's your own property, you just scatter seed...

Harry Palmr

I think everyone who worries about pollination should buy a couple of dozen seed bombs - or make your own and throw them out the windows while driving along motorways!*

As for your own back garden, just broadcast them.

















*throw them out of the passenger side window.

Fleetwoodmac

Tried this, it never worked for me! We got the local kids to make up loads as part of a tidy towns workshop but very few germinated. Interestingly, the least fertile areas.. ie rubble, rocky areas performed better but I think a lawn can be too fertile. The one that has thrived is ox eye daisy and self seeds rapidly over a few years.

Muckka

When studying horticulture myself and a few friends used to do Guirella gardening.

Basically it's planting seeds and flower's in urban areas, like aubretia seeds in cracks in pavements, wallflower seeds in wall's.
Push soil into a crack in the pavement or redbrick wall, push in some wallflower seeds.

Come back frequently and see them grow..

Lumen

Muckka wrote: »

Push soil into a crack in the pavement or redbrick wall, push in some wallflower seeds.

Eh, that's criminal damage!

Walls and plants do not mix.

Zzippy

Muckka wrote: »

When studying horticulture myself and a few friends used to do Guirella gardening.

Basically it's planting seeds and flower's in urban areas, like aubretia seeds in cracks in pavements, wallflower seeds in wall's.
Push soil into a crack in the pavement or redbrick wall, push in some wallflower seeds.

Come back frequently and see them grow..

I have a dry stone wall along one boundary and was considering doing something like this with Aubrieta. Any other plant recommendations?

looksee

Sedums and sempervivums (smaller ones).

lordgoat

Fleetwoodmac wrote: »

Tried this, it never worked for me! We got the local kids to make up loads as part of a tidy towns workshop but very few germinated. Interestingly, the least fertile areas.. ie rubble, rocky areas performed better but I think a lawn can be too fertile. The one that has thrived is ox eye daisy and self seeds rapidly over a few years.

Did you just throw these into a large grass lawn and expect the seeds to outperform the grass? Got to remove/kill off the grass first...

baaba maal

Zzippy wrote: »

I have a dry stone wall along one boundary and was considering doing something like this with Aubrieta. Any other plant recommendations?

Ivy-leaved toadflax- you see it on old limestone walls. I have taken a couple of small clumps and stuck them into a drystone wall where I had put in a couple of small pockets of soil. It isn't native, but it is naturalised.

Muckka

Zzippy wrote: »

I have a dry stone wall along one boundary and was considering doing something like this with Aubrieta. Any other plant recommendations?

Wallflowers, sedums like someone else suggested.

Ferns can be nice too, alpines are a favourite..

Here's a link...

https://www.rhs.org.uk/advice/profile?pid=961

Delaney101

Hello All

I bought 600 seedbombs from seedbombs.ie and it proved a huge waste of money. Pity me for my ignorance in gardening. I thought seedbombs would be an easy option to plant wild flowers in my garden.

I bought 600 seedbombs; garden was bare, and I followed seedbomb.ie's instructions. I placed them in February 2018 and nothing has happened at all. nothing. there still sitting there in my back garden overgrown by weeds.

The whole marketing of seedbombs is a lie. The idea that you can throw a seedbomb into an area (garden, field, etc) and it will grow sounds good but it is fantasy. The compactness of the soil prevents seedbombs from growing at all. This fact stands in complete opposition as to how these companies (i.e. seedbomb.ie) are marketing and selling their product.

When I emailed seedbomb.ie about this, they gave me new instructions. In these new instructions, I should have planted the seedbombs. Obviously! I should not have paid attention to their original instructions.

Do not buy seedbombs and do not buy from seedbomb.ie their customer service is shocking

regards

des.

El Tarangu

Delaney101 wrote: »

Hello All

I bought 600 seedbombs from seedbombs.ie and it proved a huge waste of money. Pity me for my ignorance in gardening. I thought seedbombs would be an easy option to plant wild flowers in my garden.

Should have read this thread first:

magicbastarder wrote: »

seed bombing is a concept more for spreading seed in otherwise derelict or unused property, as i've always understood it. the 'bomb' is the delivery mechanism, to allow it to be thrown.
if it's your own property, you just scatter seed...

pwurple

Yes, a few people asked me about seedbombs as well, as far as I can see they are a marketing gimmick.

Graces7

Thanks for reminding me it is time to check my seeds and scatter older part packets … had some lovely results this year.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

Delaney101 wrote: »

Hello All

I bought 600 seedbombs from seedbombs.ie and it proved a huge waste of money. Pity me for my ignorance in gardening. I thought seedbombs would be an easy option to plant wild flowers in my garden.

I bought 600 seedbombs; garden was bare, and I followed seedbomb.ie's instructions. I placed them in February 2018 and nothing has happened at all. nothing. there still sitting there in my back garden overgrown by weeds.

The whole marketing of seedbombs is a lie. The idea that you can throw a seedbomb into an area (garden, field, etc) and it will grow sounds good but it is fantasy. The compactness of the soil prevents seedbombs from growing at all. This fact stands in complete opposition as to how these companies (i.e. seedbomb.ie) are marketing and selling their product.

When I emailed seedbomb.ie about this, they gave me new instructions. In these new instructions, I should have planted the seedbombs. Obviously! I should not have paid attention to their original instructions.

Do not buy seedbombs and do not buy from seedbomb.ie their customer service is shocking

regards

des.

600 seedbombs must have cost a fortune, far as I can tell they are designed for use in ditches/roadsides and such (guerrilla gardening as another poster mentioned). All they are is just seeds in dried balls of clay/compost.

If doing your own garden then just buy some bulk bags of wildflower seed and sprinkle them on and water, that's all there is to it. Some varieties will self seed from year to year to keep going.

I've never had a problem with the seed bags, love seeing what's going to grow.

looksee

Delaney101 wrote: »

Hello All

I bought 600 seedbombs from seedbombs.ie and it proved a huge waste of money. Pity me for my ignorance in gardening. I thought seedbombs would be an easy option to plant wild flowers in my garden.

I bought 600 seedbombs; garden was bare, and I followed seedbomb.ie's instructions. I placed them in February 2018 and nothing has happened at all. nothing. there still sitting there in my back garden overgrown by weeds.

The whole marketing of seedbombs is a lie. The idea that you can throw a seedbomb into an area (garden, field, etc) and it will grow sounds good but it is fantasy. The compactness of the soil prevents seedbombs from growing at all. This fact stands in complete opposition as to how these companies (i.e. seedbomb.ie) are marketing and selling their product.

When I emailed seedbomb.ie about this, they gave me new instructions. In these new instructions, I should have planted the seedbombs. Obviously! I should not have paid attention to their original instructions.

Do not buy seedbombs and do not buy from seedbomb.ie their customer service is shocking

regards

des.

Having looked at the site I have to agree that to a person not used to growing things from seed it does look like a great idea and what you did was what they suggested. It does seem eminently pointless to spend money on clay balls when you could have bought a considerable amount of seed for the same money.

However you say that the remains of the seedbombs are surrounded by weeds. Weeds are what you are sowing and growing. They just happen to be weeds in greater variety than usual and hopefully with a display of flowers. But still weeds.

ldy4mxonucwsq6

looksee wrote: »

Having looked at the site I have to agree that to a person not used to growing things from seed it does look like a great idea and what you did was what they suggested. It does seem eminently pointless to spend money on clay balls when you could have bought a considerable amount of seed for the same money.

However you say that the remains of the seedbombs are surrounded by weeds. Weeds are what you are sowing and growing. They just happen to be weeds in greater variety than usual and hopefully with a display of flowers. But still weeds.

Should be well up and flowered by now though if he planted them in Feb '18. Mine took just over a couple of months to fully grow from the first sowing.

CheerLouth

I was delighted with my seed bombs - threw them in two flower beds & we've had the most amazing display of flowers all summer & they don't show any signs of dying yet

uck51js9zml2yt

Found this today on seedbombs

https://pollinators.ie/wildflowers-to-plant-or-not-to-plant/

magicbastarder

I just came into the thread to post the same thing. Beaten to it.

baaba maal

I call the large swathe of my front garden that I don't cut from March to October a species-rich grassland- lowers expectations but explains me not cutting it! I have augmented it slightly but just with thinngs like knapweed and fleabane that I am able to source locally.

LazyClouds

Phoenix Refined Shutterbug wrote: »

Found this today on seedbombs

https://pollinators.ie/wildflowers-to-plant-or-not-to-plant/

This article is all very well but it links this pdf (https://pollinators.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-guide-Seeds-2018-WEB.pdf) that says we should be going out and gathering our own seeds, which is a bit inconceivable for most people.

Does anyone have any links to online shops to good, native wildflower seeds rather than bombs? (I'm asking for links because obviously we can't go to any shop rn)

Harry Palmr

LazyClouds wrote: »

This article is all very well but it links this pdf (https://pollinators.ie/wordpress/wp-content/uploads/2018/04/How-to-guide-Seeds-2018-WEB.pdf) that says we should be going out and gathering our own seeds, which is a bit inconceivable for most people.

Does anyone have any links to online shops to good, native wildflower seeds rather than bombs? (I'm asking for links because obviously we can't go to any shop rn)

By chance I'm looking at this now

https://www.thegardenshop.ie/seeds/flowers/wild-flowers/

hellfish

Delaney101 wrote: »

Hello All

I bought 600 seedbombs from seedbombs.ie and it proved a huge waste of money. Pity me for my ignorance in gardening. I thought seedbombs would be an easy option to plant wild flowers in my garden.

I bought 600 seedbombs; garden was bare, and I followed seedbomb.ie's instructions. I placed them in February 2018 and nothing has happened at all. nothing. there still sitting there in my back garden overgrown by weeds.

The whole marketing of seedbombs is a lie. The idea that you can throw a seedbomb into an area (garden, field, etc) and it will grow sounds good but it is fantasy. The compactness of the soil prevents seedbombs from growing at all. This fact stands in complete opposition as to how these companies (i.e. seedbomb.ie) are marketing and selling their product.

When I emailed seedbomb.ie about this, they gave me new instructions. In these new instructions, I should have planted the seedbombs. Obviously! I should not have paid attention to their original instructions.

Do not buy seedbombs and do not buy from seedbomb.ie their customer service is shocking

regards

des.

I second this, bought hundreds of them from seedbombs.ie , planted them around the garden but did not get any wildflowers. Strange how they were posted from the UK when marketed as Irish.

Shenigans! avoid!

ednwireland

Graces7 wrote: »

Thanks for reminding me it is time to check my seeds and scatter older part packets … had some lovely results this year.

what a great idea why didnt i think of that