I am a big fan of lupines. However, I’m not a big fan of their tendency to peeter out after three of four years of gloriousness, the cost of buying fully grown plants (especially when one wants a dozen or so). So, one starts lupines from seed.
This is ridiculously easy to do. Buy a packet of seeds (roughly $2, depending on your source. If you need a source, GOOD HEAVENS, I will give you ten.). Take a damp paper towel, fold it in half and spread the seeds so they aren’t touching each other on half of the surface, then fold again, covering the seeds with the paper towel. Carefully place the bundled seeds into a ziplock bag and place somewhere warmish but not hot, and check in a few days. I will bet that by the third day you will have some sprouts, and a week later most will have sprouted for you. If not, don’t worry, just keep the seeds moist and most of them should come eventually. You can tell if the seed isn’t going to sprout because it looks shriveled and hard even after being in a damp towel several days.
Mine got away from me this year…
I should have planted these a week ago. As you can see, they are actually growing roots through the paper towel. I had to carefully tear the paper away from them so as not to break the roots.
This is more like what they should look like when you plant them:
My germination rate was quite good!
If yours get too far along too, just pot them up with the ‘leaves’ above soil surface and put them in indirect sunlight for a day or two so as not to scorch them. Then move to full sun and watch them grow like crazy. 🙂
One last thing; Lupines do not like being transplanted, and I am not a fan of peat-pots, so I make newspaper pots for my lupines. Plant them directly in the ground, and the paper disintegrates within a few months.
Thrifty! In a year I'll have 12 mature lupine plants. At a garden center, that would cost me at least $120 - $150.
Seeds - $2. Soil - less than $1. Paper pots - Free.
Castle of Blue 
Great idea for sprouting them. I’ve always found them terribly hard to grow from seed outdoors. Now I know what I was doing wrong.
Yes, I’ve tried the ‘sprinkle the seeds willy-nilly’ approach that many recommend, but I always ended up with just a plant here and there when I wanted a mass. This way you can be certain they come where you want them.
I daresay it works for many other large seeds as well.
Oh, absolutely! Any number of bean-related plants, and others I’m sure. Anything with a harder shell.
I’ve found a number of flowers to be poor germinators starting from seed – maybe I should try your nifty method on them as well. And what a glorious picture of the lupines. They’re so other-worldly.
I hope it works for you! It should work well for most larger seeds, I would think.