Harvesting honesty seedheads

[deplorabelle]

I've grown both white and purple honesty this year for pollinators and they were beautiful. I'd like to harvest the seedheads for dried flower arrangements. How long do I need to leave the plants in the ground before harvesting?

Bump for you as I had the same question!

Thanks @hydrama - I've found so many conflicting things on the internet - would love to know if I can pull it out now to make space for other things....

You need to have the seedheads fully formed, they wont do any more growing once picked. They question is, do they need to be ripened and dry before harvest. My guess is not, but I don’t know, I’ve never tried it. Posting mainly to bump.

The seed heads do need to be brown and you can see the dark seeds in them. Each seed head will have 3 layers, a protective layer on each side and a lovely silvery paper layer in the middle. That’s the one you want for decoration. Carefully remove the tough outer layers and harvest the seed, you’re them left with the ‘silver penny’ decorative layer.
id do this on the plant so the stem has some support and then remove it.

Thank you @MereDintofPandiculation and @Beebumble2 I'll leave the plants in for now.

Thought I would come back to this thread now I know the answer 🙂 @hydrama if you're still wondering.

July is the best time to harvest, basically. I took a few in May as soon as they had formed, some in July and some I left till now. The ones still in the garden now are a bit battered and discoloured. The ones I took in May and dried were okay (would harvest then if I feared they'd get smashed by footballs) but some of them were a little green at the edges or tending to mildew and it was very hard to peel the seedheads. The July harvest (left to dry till September) were much easier to peel apart and were a lovely iridescent white.

I live in Australia, and read too many Elsie J Oxenham books about the May Queens when I was a child. I had never heard of Honesty and became obsessed by it at about the age of ten, and just had to grow it. I have no gardening skills and now actively dislike gardening - allergies to plants.

My parents got some seeds from somewhere and I I grew a splendid crop of Honesty and had vases of silver pennies all over the house for a couple of years. It was easy to tell when they should be picked, it sounds stupid, but I just "knew." So go with your instincts.

Sorry, that was a useless post from me. I didn't see your last post nor the date of your original posts.

But thank you for bringing back lovely childhood memory!