I store all manner of seeds over the winter, mostly annuals, but the philosophy and manner of storage is the same.

Most places recommend wildly complicated storage methods, including baby food jars and refrigerator storage. For some species, this is necessary, so do your research. Most plants? Not that particular. :-)

Everything I have is simply left to mature on the vine (so to speak) where possible, then plucked off as a mature seed, or (in the case of the salvias that I save) pulled a bit early before full maturity and left to age a few days and drop in a large bowl just because it's more convenient for me.

Separate seed from chaff as much as you can (easy in the case of larger seeds like said salvia, impossible for ageratum and I usually just save the whole head there). Let dry on a piece of paper in an out of the way place for at least a week, longer if the seeds were wet, in a single flat layer.

I store everything in paper envelopes with the species writ upon them and the year as I also keep the year before's seeds just in case I had a critical failure. For very large seeds, last year's are still viable. For the smallest, that's probably not true, but I over-gather on the smallest to the point that I've never had to dip into the previous year.

And gather orders of magnitude more than you think you'll need, if possible. I may only need 12 Easter Egg plant (an eggplant), but I'll gather a thousand seeds. That's actually a trivial proposition, done by gathering ten or so "eggs."

Morph

Where do you store the paper envelopes?

I keep mine in shoebox. Fits perfectly.

Yep, paper envelopes in a shoebox. My shoebox sits in a closet at room temperature. The seeds we save include cotton, tobacco, zinnias, marigolds, columbines, cleome, sweet corn: easy stuff that doesn't require special handling.

Yes, you can keep aquilegia and dracocephalum in your pantry. So long as it's cool, dark, and dry you are good to go.

Personally, I like to store in paper envelopes. I keep them sorted by type in paper lunch bags and those are kept in a desk drawer in my office.

A thing to note is that you should stratify your columbines- either wintersow, or you can do 3-4 weeks in the fridge. The dragonhead does not need such treatment.

It's pretty simple, and properly stored old seeds are actually viable for most species. However, I found out the hard way that the moisture in our house degraded older seeds when stored in paper and/or their original packaging. Had I stored them in an airtight container or plastic to keep them in dry air they would have lasted much longer. I harvest and store in paper and plastic, if they are COMPLETELY dried out. I will wait for a long dry spell and pack them. From now one I won't leave any paper storage envelopes in a drawer without putting them in a larger plastic bag.

Any hints on how to remove the fluffy chaff from seeds like Anemone sylvestris?

Ditto. Anywhere relatively cool, dry, and dark. For me, that's my home office/studio. And cool is a relative term; that's room temperature or so, with dry meaning normal house humidity during fall and winter.

i tend to try not to fight ma nature.. and when she is dropping seeds .. i just drop them where i want them for next year ... and let her take care of the circle of life ..

sometimes.. out of her own cycle.. she even allows some to sprout this fall ... so you might actually have a blooming plant next summer ... instead of having to wait until the following summer ...

btw.. im thinking about the columbine regarding the above ...

soooo.. presuming you have a plethora of seed ... why not just try spreading some where you want them .. and see what happens ... while you clean sort and store the rest ...

oh.. i dont think that has been addressed .. cleaning seed for storage.. need we explaining that??? ... i would harvest flower stems ... into a paper lunch bag ... flower down ... and set them somewhere to dry .. and in a few weeks.. dump it onto a dinner plate.. and clean out everything but the seed ... then store the seed in a labeled envelop ....

ken

Thanks everyone. As for the columbine, I actually sowed them directly into the ground last year without any stratification and they germinated that same year, survived the winter and are spreading like crazy now. I even started some in pots and they are growing. Only problem is something keeps eating them almost to the point of complete defoliation.. I moved them to a different location and now they’re fine. Most likely slugs as I had all my pots encased in a net so animals don’t eat them. But either ways I know columbines are easy from seed. Just wondered if they would still be viable if I harvest them now and don’t use them until next year or something.

“Only problem is something keeps eating them almost to the point of complete defoliation.. I moved them to a different location and now they’re fine. Most likely slugs as I had all my pots encased in a net so animals don’t eat them.”

Most likely columbine sawfly. They’re defoliating many of mine at the moment.

Oh I didn't know there was such pest. Never seen them before but I guess I will keep eyes on the lookout for them.

They're hard to see, as the larvae are pretty small and the same color as the leaves, but if you can catch them in the act before the foliages takes too much damage, you can squish them pretty easily.

They don't do serious damage to the plant though, even if they do fully defoliate it, I usually find new basal foliage emerging soon after, and the life cycle of the sawfly is short enough that they're not around to attack the new flush of growth. I treat it more like a cosmetic issue.

You can find some more info on what to look for here: https://wimastergardener.org/article/common-columbine-pests-columbine-leafminer-and-columbine-sawfly

Yea they defoliated 90% of all the existing foliage but new growth is coming from the bottom. Not sure the columbines will survive though because they are only second year seedlings. Germinated last fall.