Since the wool flower or mullein (Verbascum) is a plant family with annual, biennial and perennial subspecies, sowing seeds is a common method for breeding and propagating them. Up to several thousand seeds can sometimes ripen on the inflorescences, which are filled with many individual flowers.
How to sow mullein correctly?
To sow mullein, collect ripe seeds after the seed capsules have burst and sow them in full sun in the fall. Rake in the seeds lightly and keep them evenly moist as they germinate in light. Young plants with at least four pairs of leaves can be planted outdoors from April.
The simplest propagation method for mullein is self-sowing
Since the mullein copes well with poor soils, it also reproduces relatively well in locations such as gravel pits and railway embankments if it is not too pressured by competition from other plant species. Unless the mulleins planted in your garden are specially bred hybrid varieties, you can leave them to propagate to nature. However, you must not cut off the inflorescences immediately after the flowering period and you have to accept that the plants, which often only bloom in their second year, sometimes choose very unconventional places to grow.
The targeted harvesting and sowing of seeds
If you leave the wool flower inflorescences long enough after they have withered and they are not hybrid varieties, then you can harvest the mullein seeds as soon as the seed capsules burst open. You will get the best results if you sow the freshest possible seeds in autumn in suitable, full-sun locations and keep the seeds evenly moist. Since mullein is a light germinator, the seeds should only be raked in lightly. A more controlled germination of seeds is possible on the windowsill, but the temperature here should not exceed 18 degrees Celsius. Young plants with at least four pairs of leaves can be planted outdoors from April at least 50 centimeters apart.
Alternatives to sowing when propagating mullein
There may be various reasons why alternative methods of propagation of woolly flowers are preferred to sowing mullein seeds:
- the desire for true-to-variety offshoots
- Experienceability
- the propagation of hybrid varieties
With mullein it is possible to obtain so-called root cuttings for propagation. To do this, cut pieces about 10 to 15 centimeters long from the roots of a strong plant in autumn. The root pieces, cut straight at the top and cut diagonally at the bottom, are overwintered in a slightly moist substrate in an unheated cold frame or in a bright basement room and planted out the following summer as soon as the first pairs of leaves have formed.
Tips & Tricks
You will have the least amount of effort with breeding mullein if you distribute the large quantities of seeds evenly in different sunny locations outdoors and simply cut out excess specimens the following spring.
