I potted up six pots of native wildflower seeds and one pot of red shiso this morning in warm sunshine. The wildflower seeds are from the Wild Seed Project, purchased at the Common Ground Fair. The red shiso failed to grow successfully for me despite two tries following the directions to freeze and thaw successively. So I’m trying a natural approach by leaving it out for the winter.
Planting the wildflower seeds was fun. First of all I didn’t have to rummage around in the shed for pots and dirt. Exactly the right number of pots were available right out front after I eliminated an excess of frozen angel wing begonias that I’d started last year. Secondly, some of those seed packets held a very fine flattened lacey fluff, just as you’d expect from wild flowers. I carefully removed the fluff and spread it out over the dirt. Other seeds were extremely tiny. The instructions say no need to try to space them at this point — really, seeds distributed naturally are thickly spaced! It felt really nice to be trying to follow natural processes. Now these pots go in a somewhat protected area to overwinter. While I dream of flowering meadows of native plants…
Native seeds planted:
- Coastal joe pye weed
- Blue vervain
- New England aster
- Boneset
- Cardinal flower
- Blue lobelia
Instructions and photos: https://wildseedproject.net/how-to-grow-natives-from-seed/