These popular spring bloomers are absolute pros at spreading their seeds. The more lush the flowers, the more seeds they’ll drop. If you let nature take its course, forget-me-nots will happily self-sow and pop up all over your garden. However, if you have specific spots in mind for these blue beauties, your best bet is to collect the seeds and start the young plants yourself.
A Closer Look at Forget-Me-Not Seeds
After the flowers fade, forget-me-nots develop what botanists call “schizocarps”—a fancy name for a fruit that splits into pieces. Once ripe, these fruits break apart into four tiny, one-seeded sections known as nutlets. These seeds are egg-shaped, slightly flattened, and have a shiny brown or black finish. In the wild, they usually hitch a ride on passing animals to find a new home.
Growing Forget-Me-Nots from Seed
You can grab a packet of seeds at the store or harvest them from your own garden. Store-bought seeds will give you a specific, uniform variety, while home-collected seeds are often a “mystery mix” because different plants cross-pollinate.
Either way, these seeds are usually very eager to sprout! Here’s how to get your sowing started:
- Aim to get your seeds in the ground or trays by August at the latest so they can get strong before winter hits.
- Fill your seed trays or pots with a good starter mix (or sow them directly into your garden bed).
- Scatter the seeds thinly.
- Pro tip: Don’t bury them! Forget-me-nots are “light germinators,” meaning they need light to sprout. Just press them gently into the soil or cover them with a very fine dusting of earth.
- Firm the soil down and mist it with a spray bottle.
- Keep the soil consistently moist, but never soggy—you want to avoid standing water at all costs.
- You should see sprouts appearing in about two to three weeks.
- Once the seedlings have their third pair of leaves, it’s time to thin them out.
- If they’re in the garden, space them about 6 to 8 inches apart.
- If they’re in trays, move each strong seedling into its own individual pot.
Try to get your young plants into their permanent garden spots by late fall so they can establish roots before the ground freezes. Even though forget-me-nots are hardy perennials, these “babies” appreciate a little winter protection, like a light mulch of dry leaves or evergreen branches.
Starting Forget-Me-Nots Indoors
If you want a head start on spring color, you can start your seeds indoors. Sow them in pots or window boxes and keep them in a cool spot—an unheated sunroom or a frost-free greenhouse is perfect. Your main job is to keep the soil moist without letting it get waterlogged or bone-dry. By spring, you’ll have sturdy plants ready to hit the garden beds as soon as the risk of frost has passed.
Keep in mind that starting them indoors takes a bit of space and effort. Since you can usually pick up pre-grown forget-me-nots pretty cheaply at the local nursery in the spring, it’s only really worth the extra work if you have the perfect cool spot to grow them!
