Pixabay / Licence

When a plant is propagated by seed it will not be exactly the same as the parent plant from which the seed was collected, but it will be similar. Like with people, a child is a genetic mix of both its parents and will develop characteristics from each; young plants are slightly different to their parents. New characteristics can be bred into plants by selecting which parent plants pollinate each other, for example, by selecting two particularly large parent plants, or two with unusual flower colours.

There are few tasks in the garden so satisfying as germinating little forests of seedlings in the spring but there are different techniques which suit the required germination environment for different species.