Hancock resident Henry Ditlow, a senior at High Mowing School in Wilton, launched Hancock’s first seed library Saturday at Hancock Town Library.

“I have kind of always been interested in plants. When I was little, my dad and I gardened together, and we spent a lot of time exploring the forest and parks and just started from there,” he said.  

Ditlow created the seed library for his senior capstone project at High Mowing.

 “I had quite a few ideas for my capstone project. Initially I thought maybe I would make an herbarium – a collection of dried plants – for my school, or that I would create a small mushroom farm,” he said. 

Ditlow worked with Hancock librarian Amy Markus as well as with Collette Lucas, who is the head librarian at MacDowell’s James Baldwin Library. 

“Collette was my expert advisor, and she was a wonderful resource. She created the Peterborough seed library,” Ditlow said. 

Ditlow said the idea for the seed library came to him after a visit to the Bedford library. 

“They are a much bigger library, and they have a really big seed library, but I decided that was a good model to base my project on. The seed box is definitely based on theirs,  but I added several other things they don’t have,” Ditlow said. 

Ditlow’s seed library includes a binder of detailed information about each plant, live seedlings and a log book.  The seed box has five categories: vegetables and fruits, herbs, flowers, native plants and a small category of  “other.” Each category has smaller subcategories, including perennials, annuals and whether the plant is a “dye plant” that can be used to coloring textiles. 

“I think that is unique among the seed libraries I have seen. There is a big crafting community here,  and a lot of people dye their own textiles. There actually quite a few dye plants in there,” Ditlow said.

Ditlow also believes his native plants seed section is unusual for a seed library.

“It’s definitely something I have not seen before," Ditlow said. “The Hancock library has a native plant garden right out front, and I was really inspired by that.” 

Kin Schilling, founder of the Cornucopia Project, said when she stopped by on Saturday that the seed library was “just wonderful.”

“It’s fantastic to see a young person interested in plants as a career,” Schilling said. 

Ditlow was very careful about where he sourced his seeds. 

“It’s not a seed exchange. Several people have asked about that, but we were very careful to only get seeds that we know have not been hybridized,” Ditlow said.

Many organic, non-GMO seed companies supported Ditlow’s project by donating seeds, including Fedco, Pinetree, Redwood Seeds, Bentley, Baker Creek and High Mowing Seeds. Ditlow also purchased seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery, Renee’s Garden and Earthbeat Seeds.  

Ditlow is currently deciding between three schools with undergraduate botany programs, which are rare, or plant science programs.

“Sadly, there are not a lot of schools that still do botany, so the schools kind of selected themselves. There are more programs focused on  agriculture, ” he said. “Most botany programs are at the graduate level, and it seems like botany is kind of  disappearing.”