Gardening season is officially here! The Rock Island Public Library Seed Library collection is available for selection at all library buildings from March 17, 2026 until late September 2026.
New this year, the library offers small seed catalogs at its Rock Island Southwest and Watts-Midtown Branches, in addition to the full seed collection located at the Downtown Library. The collections of no-charge vegetable, herb, flower, and native plant varieties are available for browsing during regular library hours.
There is no charge to take seeds for a personal garden, and no library card or residency is required. Participants may select up to five packets of seeds per household per month. Please take a variety of seeds. Even more plants and flowers native to Illinois are available in this year’s collection. Look for the leaf on the packet to find these varieties, known for being low-maintenance, climate and often drought hardy, and helpful for supporting pollinators and biodiversity.
Gardeners can easily find growing instructions for each seed in the Illinois Growing Guide, which is available in a binder near Seed Library collections and online via the Seed Library page at this website.
Seeds may be saved at harvest and brought back to the library, but it’s not mandatory. More than 3,700 packets of seed were distributed in 2025. Rock Island Library introduced the free Seed Library collection to the Quad Cities in April 2018. The practice has since been adopted by more local libraries.