I have two Lucifera Crocosmia plants that lost their flowers. I want to collect the seeds, but the pods are still green. How long do I wait?
They look like in the picture below, a couple of pods and then there are those small bulbs that I do not know what they are. The pods are still green. Should I collect them now? If not what is a good sign they are ready?
Wkimedia commons has a nice image of Montbretia fully ripe and mature capsules with seeds. As you can see the capsules turn brown and split open revealing the seeds. Normally on a seed spike like this the capsules do not all open at the same time so it will be easy to track when they start to open. If you have a lot of spikes and can afford the experiment you might consider cutting a stem and allowing it to dry in an open paper bag to see if you can collect fully ripened seeds in the case that the mature capsules release the seeds too quickly.
If you want more plants, Crocosmia grow from corms; these usually increase quite rapidly even in a year, and especially 2 years, meaning you can dig up a clump, divide and plant elsewhere.
Seeds gathered from the pods are sometimes sterile, but those that aren't will take around 2 years before flowering, and Crocosmia does not necessarily come true from seed, so the resulting plants may or may not be like 'Lucifer'.
The smaller pods in your image are exactly as you describe them - undeveloped seed pods which may never develop properly.
