ONCE UPON A TIME, the seed catalogs came out around the start of the New Year, but these days the very first ones may arrive by Thanksgiving, and their listings may be posted online even earlier. So I guess what I am saying is: It’s not too early to start talking about seed shopping … and it’s never too early to start scouting out new seed sources that you might not know about!
My guest to get seed season started is the adventurous seed shopper Joseph Tychonievich, who has called himself a “plant-crazed garden nerd,” and we connected on the podcast to share some of our favorite places to track down unusual goodies of all kinds, from alpines to native perennials.
Joseph is a writer, a plant breeder and of course a gardener, based in South Bend, Ind.—and the author of the books “Rock Gardening: Reimagining a Classic Style,” plus a graphic novel on growing food called “The Comic Book Guide to Growing Food.” You may recall past conversations we’ve had on the show about other passions of his such as snapdragons, and gladiolus and more. (Photo above, Joseph grew Lewisia ‘Tutti Frutti’ from Jelitto Perennial Seed.)
Read along as you listen to the Nov. 17, 2025 edition of my public-radio show and podcast using the player below. You can subscribe to all future editions on Apple Podcasts (iTunes) or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
seed shopping with joseph tychonievich
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Margaret Roach: Hi, Joseph. I had a little snow last night. How about you?
Joseph Tychonievich: I had a lot of snow [laughter]. We have about a foot on the ground.
Margaret: Oh, sorry. Happy early November.
Joseph: Diving into winter with a bang here?
Margaret: O.K. So much for those spring-like or early fall, like days of a few days ago. O.K. [Laughter.] So seed shopping, first of all, I’m just going to, you have to confess, have you already ordered some things?
Joseph: Yes [laughter].
Margaret: O.K. Truth be told, he has already. I think the rarer the items on your wishlist and the more obscure your sources, it’s kind of a race to get there before they’re gone. These are not giant factory-type places we’re talking about, right?
Joseph: Yeah. And also sometimes because seeds, you can store them, I’m a little bit sometimes if I get a bee in my bonnet about something, I’m ordering seeds all the time, even if I’m not going to sow it till the spring. Sometimes if I start thinking about it, then anytime you order it, it can sit in my seed box until I get around to it. So I’m kind of always ordering seeds if I’m honest [laughter].
Margaret: O.K. Now we have the full confession. The seed box: Where does it live? Is it live in a special cool, dry place or what’s where? Is it in your house or-?
Joseph: I keep it in my basement, which is pretty cool. And then they’re like Tupperware tubs, and I put a little bit of silica gel, which absorbs moisture and that you see in those little packets in shoes and stuff in the bottom, to keep them nice and dry. So that’s kind of my system. They used to be in the refrigerator, but my husband thought that maybe we should keep refrigerator space for food [laughter]. So now they’re in the basement.
Margaret: He’s so boring, he doesn’t understand at all. Are there some things that you order every year that you can’t sort of live without? I mean, for me, I like to make this particular vegetable soup, and I have this one bean, this pole bean called ‘Aunt Ada’s, Italian’ pole bean that just… It’s one of those ones, it’s like a greasy bean from the South. It’s one of those ones where the shell stays on and the beans are plump inside, but the beans are tender and the shell stays tender. So it’s like you get the green and the bean in your soup and it’s rich and wonderful. And so I get that from Turtle Tree Seed every year. And that’s in the Hudson Valley of New York near me. And it’s like I have to have that. Is there anything like that that you absolutely have to have?
Joseph: I think I usually end up ordering different things. I mean, there’s stuff I grow every year. There’s a few tomatoes I have to grow every year, but usually I save seeds from them myself. And then I’m often, yeah, so I’m always ordering some kind of kale and I’ve the one, it’s like an Asian broccoli, the cultivar’s ‘Happy Rich,’ that is my must-have with a vegetable garden that I get from Johnny’s Selected Seeds. It’s almost like a broccolini, but I love it because you can plant it once it makes a big bush and it just keeps a harvest about once every one or two weeks, all summer long. [Photo of ‘Happy Rich’ from Johnny’s catalog.]
Margaret: It’s interesting. There’s one, and I don’t know how to pronounce it, it has a Latin American name, ‘Piracicaba,’ and that is one that it will keep yielding, not giant heads, but florets again and again and again and again and again over many weeks. And it’s great.
Joseph: Yeah, I kind of don’t want the giant heads. It’s so impractical. I know that’s what in the grocery stores you’re used to seeing. But one big head, if you plant them all at once, you just get this deluge of broccoli and then nothing. So I like the ones that send off some offsets.
Margaret: Oh, interesting. I don’t know that one.
O.K, so you hunt for other kinds of seeds. You have a lot of plant passions. You’re an alpine gardener, you breed plants. You have all kinds of, I think I said in the introduction, you call yourself a “plant-crazed garden nerd.” What kinds of places do you scout out? What are some of the things you’re looking for?
Joseph: I really love some kind of small, eclectic company that’s one person with a passion who’s collecting unusual seeds. I would love stumbling on them. Usually if the website looks like it hasn’t been updated since the internet, since it was AOL or something [laughter], that’s always a great sign. And one I really love, there’s a company called Seedhunt, which is run by a woman named Jenny Hunt in California, which is all California native seeds. And it’s just their singular passion. And it’s just fascinating because the whole list of stuff I’ve never heard of, which is catnip for me [laughter].
Margaret: Got to try it. Right.
Joseph: Yes, got to try it. Got to try it. Yeah.
Margaret: California natives, interesting.
Joseph: Yeah, and what’s interesting is she has a lot of California native annuals. Obviously the perennials I can’t grow because it snowed yesterday. But there’s a lot of California native annuals that germinate when the rains come, I guess in the fall and, are kind of winter, spring, fall cool-season annuals for California that actually do pretty good in my Midwestern summer. So Clarkia is a huge genus, and every year I just have to order new species of Clarkia from Seedhunt, just to see which ones are going to do well for me here in the Midwest. [Above, a Clarkia williamsonii from Seedhunt at Joseph’s.]
Margaret: That’s great. So Seedhunt. O.K, so that’s one, and that’s one I’ve never heard of. So that’s interesting. And then people who are listening who of course are from the West may wish to indulge in some of the perennials and so forth as well [laughter].
Joseph: Yes, for sure. Yeah, if you are out on the West Coast, I’m sure they hopefully have heard of it already. But yeah, it’s such a really tons of stuff that I don’t think you’re going to find in any the traditional catalogs.
Margaret: Any other sort of ones from other regions of the country?
Joseph: So the other one that’s also out West is called Alplains. And again, it’s this one guy who goes and collects seeds, and he’s somewhere, I think he’s in Colorado, so he’s kind of in the Mountain West. And again, it’s all these, I would say 90-plus percent native species from that region. But really fascinating.
I really like it because this huge list of all these species, again, I’ve never heard of, but he also, each listing has a lot of information about where the native population that the seeds originally came from is from. So I’m really into hardy cactus right now. And there’s a species, Echinocereus reichenbachii, which ranges really widely through the West to high elevations and up north and south. And so there’s forms that are from zone 4, and there’s forms that are from zone 7, and he has all these different listings. So I can kind of pick out the ones from the higher altitude or the northern range that are most likely to survive my winters.
Margaret: Now, of course, that genus of cactus just sort of flowed off your tongue and I have no idea what you said because I don’t think…what?
Joseph: Echinocereus reichenbachii[above].
Margaret: Interesting. Don’t know it.
Joseph: So they’re sometimes called hedgehog cactus. So the typical hardy cactus for us in the East are the prickly pears, Opuntia.
Margaret: Yes.
Joseph: And I hate them so much because they have the little glochids, the little hairs that stick in your skin for what feels like days afterwards. So Echinocereus is a really beautiful genus, lots of very hardy species. They’re spiny, but they don’t have those little hairs. So they don’t embed themselves in you. I find them much-
Margaret: Friendlier [laughter].
Joseph: Yes, friendlier, and really, really, really fun to grow.
Margaret: And so when you grow a cactus from seed it’s a perennial. So is it a winter-sown thing or how long an investment is that before you see something come up?
Joseph: They actually germinate really fast. They don’t need any kind of cold treatment or anything. Some species do, I think Opuntia do, but they germinate pretty fast. So their seed is surprisingly teeny and the seedlings actually don’t want to dry out because they’re so small at first. But they germinate within matter of a few weeks. And when they first germinate, they’re the cutest little… because they come up and they’re already succulents. So the little tiny cotyledons are all fat and swollen and they’re like little flowers all round. I don’t know, they’re so cute. And they’re really slow. The first six months they just look teeny. But then they start growing pretty fast, and they start getting up to flowering size and even three years after sowing.
Margaret: So it was an investment plant, but it’s not something you’re going to find otherwise unless you did it.
Joseph: No, no, there’s really not. I mean, especially you can find the species for sale, but often what you’ll find for sale are the southern forms or the lower-altitude forms that are not going to be as hardy. And then I also like that I can grow a packet, I can grow a hundred of them, and that gives me some variation, because with seed, you get this wonderful genetic diversity. And so the first winter I plant them out and I usually lose a quarter of them that are not quite as hardy, but the rest survive. And I kind of get to do almost like a little bit of mini-plant breeding just by growing a big seed population and finding which survive the winter. The winter just kills off the weaklings [laughter].
Margaret: Oh, cool. So Alplains—and there’s like alpine plants and so forth there.
Joseph: Alpine plants, a lot of desert plants, all from the Mountain West. But just all kinds of things like Phlox, which I think I know, but I only know some of the Eastern species really. There’s all these Western species that I’ve never heard of and I’m like, “Ooh, I want to try all of them.”
Margaret: Any other catalogs that you’re looking at right now? When I say catalogs, of course, that’s what we always called them: seed catalogs. And a lot of these, there’s no paper version anymore, you know what I mean? Or there never was in some of these cases; it’s a website usually.
Joseph: Yeah, I don’t think anything I had on my list to talk to you about has a paper version. Actually, the postage for these little, well, maybe one, but another one I really love is Hayefield Seeds. This is Nancy Ondra’s. She had a garden blog for a long time. She’s in the Philadelphia area, I think. And on her website, she has this wonderfully eclectic list of seeds, many collected from her own garden, a few of her own selections of things like variegated sunflowers or morning glory with yellow leaves, or a lot of old-fashioned annuals that are too tall so you’re not going to find them at the garden centers. It’s a lot of interesting old-fashioned annuals off-the-beaten-path stuff. You never quite know what you’re going to find in her list; there’s vegetables, there’s flowers, it’s perennials. It’s just a very personal kind of list of plants that she loves. And she’s a fantastic gardener. [Above, Nemophila ‘Penny Black’ from Hayefield at Joseph’s.]
Margaret: Oh, that sounds like such fun.
Joseph: It’s really fun because I feel like you get this little window into what she loves to grow, and often it’s something that a variegated form popped up in her garden and she’s saved for years. So it’s really fun, I feel like I’m getting a little piece of her gardening spirit every time I order from her catalog.
Margaret: You remind me about the selections and the oddballs that show up. And my friend Ken Druse sent me some. He likes, as you do, to get unusual things and then grow them out from seed and see which are the best ones. I love pokeweed, which maybe a lot of people don’t like, but I love it. And he has various yellow-leaved and variegated-leaved forms that he had some seedlings of. And so he sent me some of those and it’s really fun. It’s just fun to see what they’re going to grow up into.
Joseph: Yeah, that’s very the type of thing that you’re going to find. She almost certainly has variegated pokeweeds. It’s the type of thing you’re never going to find it at the big box store.
Margaret: No, definitely not.
Joseph: But it is a really cool and actually really beautiful native plant. So she has a lot of those types of things that are maybe a little off the beaten path, but really, really fun to grow [laughter].
Margaret: So where do we go next to spend some more money [laughter]?
Joseph: Well, my next list… So the ones I’ve talked about so far are kind of most likely one person, their personal passion. But my “you can find anything you want” is Jelitto Perennial Seed, which probably people have heard of.
Margaret: Oh sure. In Germany, yes.
Joseph: Yeah, based in Germany and probably one of the biggest perennial seed producers in the world. So it’s pretty much exclusively perennial seeds. It’s a huge list. They do sell a lot of wholesale, so a lot of wholesale growers are buying from them, but they sell retail. And really nice: They do have an office in the us. So despite tariffs and everything else, you can still get seeds from them.
Margaret: Oh, he said the T word. Oh dear [laughter].
Joseph: Oh dear. Yeah. But Jelitto is, I mean, one, it’s the most comprehensive list of any kind of perennial you can imagine from seed probably you’ll find anywhere. So all kinds of things, which is really, really fun.
They also have a really interesting line of what they call their Gold Nugget seed line, which are their pretreated seeds. So they take seeds that normally would take a cold period and all this kind of stuff to germinate, and it’s their trade secret, how they do it, but treating it with some kind of plant hormones probably so that they’ll germinate in two weeks. So if you don’t want to fuss with, “Well, I have to take the Lewisia seeds [photo top of page] and put them outside for the winter and then bring them in and all, dah, dah, dah, dah,” you can just order the Gold Nugget form, and they germinate like your Zinnia would.
Margaret: So they’ve been conditioned already.
Joseph: Yeah, yeah. They’ve given all the pre-treatments you need. And it can really simplify if you’re kind of like, oh, do I want to fuss with this thing needs sandpaper, and then soak them-
Margaret: Right to stratify or scarify or whatever.
Joseph: All those kind of things for a lot of seeds, they have these nice shortcuts, which can be really a fun, an easy way to get into some weird things since you don’t want to mess with all the seed treatments.
And I love Jelitto, too, because despite being a German-based company, they have a really great list of U.S. North American native plants.
Margaret: Yes. Well, and of course the German gardeners, German designers, well, a lot of European designers, had an appreciation of our native perennials and so forth long before we did [laughter], horticulturally speaking.
Joseph: When I was in college studying horticulture, all the selections of native plants were from Germany, our native plants, the first selections of Echinacea and all these things. So I think they actually started appreciating our native prairie plants in particular before we did.
Margaret: Yes. And celebrating them.
Joseph: So they still have really great… I mean, now we have more great native plant nurseries and seed sources in the U.S., but they still are a really great option if you’re looking for a lot of native perennials where they’re going to have great selections and really very high-quality seed, because they do often sell to wholesale growers. So they have been germination-tested, they’re very clean. You can really rely on high reliable germination from them, where sometimes if it’s a backyard operation, maybe sometimes you wonder how, but it’s a very high-quality, high germination rates and really, really extensive list.
Margaret: You also shop at plant societies and so forth. And when I say shop, it’s not like they have stores or again, like a printed catalog or whatever. There are like seed swaps and online seed exchanges and things like that. Various plant societies have that. And you do that as well, don’t you? I mean, it’s sort of an alternative method to get really special things.
Joseph: So a lot of plant societies have seed exchanges where the members collect seeds from their plants, send them into the society, and then there’s an option for other members into get those seeds. And I do think that’s probably, if you really want to get the rarest, most unusual things, the seed exchanges are usually we can find the most off-the-beaten-track plants. And it’s also, though, there’s something dangerous about it, because if I see something in Jelitto and I’m not sure if I want to buy it, I know it’ll be there next year because they’re a big company. But if you see it on the seed exchange list, you’re like, it may never be there again because somebody donated this year. And there’s this sense of so many things. I’m like, “Why did I order that?” But there’s that sense of, “Oh, if I don’t get it now, I’m going to miss out.” [Laughter.]
Which makes it fun. But also is interesting to see what species you can get. So my top society seed exchange is the North American Rock Garden Society, which I work for. I edit their journal, and I’m very involved in. And it’s obviously because the rock garden society is a great seed exchange for alpine plants, but I think rock garden society people are just, they’re like the alpha plant nerd [laughter]. They just love everything.
And so I’ve found one year I grew some weird species of cosmos that I’ve never heard of that, some from Mexico I literally never seen it before or since. So it’s just, you never know what you’re going to find. All kinds of a good representation again of native species. The people are collecting seeds from a lot of alpine species, a lot of really unusual things. And it’s really fun; the seed exchange opens in December every year, and it’s first-come, first-serve, and some of these things are very limited quantity. So there’s kind of this fun sense of marking it on your calendar. And I have to get up that morning, get on the seed exchange and quickly figure out what I want and try to get my order in fast to make sure I get the cool things before they’re gone.
Margaret: So with something like this, like North American Rock Garden Society or the Gesneriad Society, the Peony Society, the Primrose Society, there’s a lot of these places, and I actually have a list of plant societies. Do you have to be a member? I think your members get first dibs, so to speak. [Above, Iris dichotoma that Joseph sources from NARGS.]
Joseph: I think most of them, you have to be a member to participate; it varies by society. I think the Primrose Society, the first round is only open to members, and then they have a second round that’s open to everybody.
Margaret: That’s what I remember. That’s the one I’m remembering.
Joseph: So it depends on the society. Most of them do need to be a member. And then usually if you’re a member, you can then order seeds and there’s a small fee to cover the postage and everything for ordering the seeds. So you’d have to have a membership. And then usually if you donate seeds, then you’re allowed to order even more. So there’s a limit of, in the first round, you can order 10 packets of seeds or something. But if you donated to the exchange, you can order, I don’t know, it’s going to depend on the society, 15. So if you don’t have seeds to share to the exchange, you can still order seeds. But if you do have something in your garden you can collect seeds from and send in, then you can you get more plants from the exchanges.
Margaret: And one that’s not a plant society that’s very famous, was the original part of Seed Savers Exchange, is now just called The Exchange. And most of us know the commercial catalog, the retail catalog, that they create every year. But The Exchange was the hub, the beginning of it. And it’s what you’re talking about, it’s sort of, it’s a virtual seed swap, and you can go on and see who’s got what. And in that case, I don’t believe you have to also offer anything; you can purchase from all the listers, I think, as they’re called.
And it’s really wonderful because it’s a phenomenal number of things [laughter]. I mean, you’re just not going to see them anywhere else. So it’s just fun. And you can find people in your region if you’re looking for things that are appropriate for your region or whatever. I mean, all these heritage varieties and hand-me-downs with provenance, with great stories to tell and so forth. So The Exchange at Seed Savers is kind of a fun way to get into that world, too. Not a plant society per se.
Joseph: Yeah. Yes. Certainly for vegetables, if you’re into vegetable growing.
Margaret: Oh, absolutely. And they have flowers and stuff, too. But I think the vegetables is amazing.
Joseph: The tomato selection is-
Margaret: It’s unbelievable.
Joseph: Hundreds and hundreds of tomatoes, and it’s really, yeah, and it is really fun. I love, like you said, the stories. I think there’s something really fun about not just, well, “I bought this thing,” but getting a sense of the connection of somebody collected this and donated it and shared it, and they have some of the background and stuff. It adds another dimension to enjoying the plant beyond just its function in your garden when you have a little bit of that backstory. And the other people who loved it and donated it to The Exchange.
Margaret: Is there another one that you want to mention or anything that you’re hunting down? Any project you have going? I mean, you’re always into some plant or other [laughter].
Joseph: The one I’ll mention is Silverhill Seeds, which is based in South Africa and is amazing. But they’re a little bit, right now, they’re taking a pause because they don’t with the tariff situation, they’re not sure how they can import. I think they will start importing to the U.S. again. So they’re on a pause right now. But I’ve gotten involved with my local conservatory, and so I’m thinking about South African plants that may be good for them. But certainly if you live in Southern California, which is a similar climate to South Africa, or you have a greenhouse place, there are really cool to get really unusual South African species.
Margaret: Yeah. Oh my goodness. Some of the bulbs!
Joseph: Oh my God, amazing.
Margaret: The bulbs alone, just the bulbs—the diversity of bulbs in South Africa is just beyond belief.
Joseph: Astonishing.
Margaret: Well, Joseph, I’m glad we’re going to have to do more seed shopping together, I think, because I suspect there’s even more. And maybe some seed starting [laughter]. I might need some of your tips, but thank you so much for making time, and I’m sorry about the foot of snow.
Joseph: Yeah, well, thank you so much for talking. This was a great distraction from all the tree branches that broke off in this storm.
Margaret: And the T word and all that.
Joseph: Yes.
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MY WEEKLY public-radio show, rated a “top-5 garden podcast” by “The Guardian” newspaper in the UK, began its 16th year in March 2025. It’s produced at Robin Hood Radio, the smallest NPR station in the nation. Listen locally in the Hudson Valley (NY)-Berkshires (MA)-Litchfield Hills (CT) Mondays at 8:30 AM Eastern, rerun at 8:30 Saturdays. Or play the Nov. 17, 2025 show using the player near the top of this transcript. You can subscribe to all future editions on iTunes/Apple Podcasts or Spotify (and browse my archive of podcasts here).
