Nursing Native Plants

This year I dedicated myself to collecting native plant seeds wherever I could find them. By the end of the summer I had permission to gather seed on four yards in my neighborhood, not to mention my own collection at home. I carefully dried, packaged, and labeled them, giving second life to a lot of milk storage bags that no longer had a use. I had about 50 species collected or purchased from Prairie Moon Nursery, which was lovely, but I still didn't have a plan for how to actually grow all of them.

I owe a lot to this inspiring article from Houzz, about being your own wildflower nursery. The basics were that you should fill a lot of pots with soil and leave the seeds in them over the winter. Easy. Most native plants need that period of cold to germinate; some are more complicated and need a period of hot followed by a period of cold, or even need exposure to fire in order to sprout. I'm hopeful that most of what I collected is the simple "period of cold" type of plant.

I didn't want to just have a lot of pots around (though admittedly I have a lot of garden pots), and so I set about trying to transform the wasted space of the easement in front of my house. The city of Champaign had confirmed for me that I couldn't really plant a prairie there due to height limits in plantings, which led me to thinking that if I just started plants there I could put the space to use. I also invested in several shorter species (dwarf blazing star, new jersey tea) that I hope will be anchors for a real planting in the front.

Several months ago I noticed a big pile of unused wood next to my garage that was leftover from the previous owners. Wood being expensive I decided that we would use this to build the frames of our plant nursery. It didn't matter much if the wood had been treated as we weren't growing food plants, and if it fell apart in a few years I wouldn't be heartbroken because we hadn't spent any money on it. Since it was basically a series of squares it wasn't hard to put together in a few afternoons (mostly done by the husband, as I tended the baby).

The end results is an entirely passable raised bed for native plant seeds. Filling it in with enough dirt was my major concern, but as I bought more bags I realized they fit perfectly in the squares we'd established.

Each bag contains a different species and is labeled with these fantastic metal, imprintable tabs with the name of the plant engraved in it (you do this yourself with a pen or pencil). In the spring, I'll cut away the plastic and let the seeds do their thing.

This method served multiple purposes - it will kill the grass below, contain the seeds over the winter, and provides somewhere for the labels to be affixed. Theoretically perfect for now, though we'll see if there are any complications in the spring. Now I just need to cover the whole thing in straw and let it sit!

I do also have multiple pots of seeds started, as the raised bed currently only holds 22 species. Here's another 8 that I got into pots yesterday afternoon. I have probably another 25 I should do the same with. Awesome!

Species list coming this afternoon when I have time!