Tag Archives: Seed germination

Seeded Prairie Checkup

Posted on by Brad Guhr

I recently did a seeded prairie checkup to see how our December 2020 sidewalk planting described in the earlier blog post “Seeding After Disturbance” is doing. I’ve been informally monitoring it regularly since spring and have been encouraged by the progress I’ve seen.

Sidewalk edge seeded planting site this week on 8/10/21
The same planting site on the day it was planted 12/28/20 w/ planters Janelle and Kendra

Good Germination

We’ve been lucky with the weather since this planting. Conditions to promote good seed germination have been excellent. Remember the deep freeze we had in February? While it tested our human resiliency and strained our heating bills, it was good for this seeded prairie. Adequate precipitation and freeze/thaw action commenced throughout February and March. These conditions helped work the seed down into the soil while also breaking down their seed coats to help prepare them for germination.

Warmer temperatures along with rains in April and May promoted good germination. Identifiable prairie seedlings from the planted species list identified in the earlier blog post were evident amidst the expected seedlings of annuals like ragweed, sunflower, and foxtail.

Annual sunflower, giant ragweed, and foxtail grass serve as a shading nurse crop for tender, young perennial prairie plants

Thanks to the planting areas’ proximity to a water spigot, I was able to do some supplemental irrigation during the hot, dry weeks of late June and early July to keep the new seedlings from burning up while the seedling roots were small. But periodic rains in July and early August along with mottled shade from the nurse crop of sunflowers and annual grasses provided the conditions needed to help the prairie seedlings get well established as we head into fall.

Species Identified

A brief perusal of seedlings during this week’s seeded prairie checkup helped me find and photograph 14 of the 43 species that were part of the Prairie Moon Nursery seed mix. My prairie seedling identification skills are rusty, but I was able to identify the following seedlings to at least genus and some to species.

  • IL Tick Trefoil (Desmodium illinoense)
  • Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
  • Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea)
  • Rattlesnake Master (Eryngium yuccifolium) (smooth, tall and slender in middle)
  • Smooth Penstemon (Penstemon digitalis)
  • MO Evening Primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa)
  • Wild Bergamot (Monarda fistulosa)
  • Blazing Star (Liatris sp.)
  • Coneflower (Echinacea sp.)
  • Flowering Il Tick Trefoil
  • White Prairie Clover (Dalea candida)
  • Yellow Partridge Pea (Chamaecrista fasciculata)
  • False Bonset (Brickellia eupatorioides)
  • Indigo (Baptisia sp.)
  • New England Aster (Aster novae-angliae)

Seedlings of these identified species are thick throughout the planting and I’m confident that a good number of the rest of the 43 species in the mix will also show up eventually.

Weed Management

Typical management for a less-manicured seeded planting is simply to mow it a couple of times during the growing season to keep annuals from going to seed. Since such an approach for a higher profile area near the visitor center may look a bit scalped and perhaps not as appealing, we are taking the approach of cutting or pulling stems of the annuals. It is more labor intensive than mowing but not an unmanageable approach for small sidewalk edge planting, and regular volunteer, Gerry Selzer, has cheerfully embraced this task.

This weedy sidewalk edge vegetation is shading and hosting a variety of prairie seedlings underneath
The rare and coveted Gerrius selzeranii

Attracting Insects

One of the main reasons for planting this diverse wildflower seed mix in addition to adding pretty splashes of flower colors, is to attract insects and biological diversity to our sidewalk edge prairie beds. In two or three years, these planted species will be flowering and attracting insects with their flower nectar and host plant vegetation. I look forward to engaging school kids and teachers with regular investigations of these sidewalk edges to learn more about relationship between prairie plants and insects.

A new black-eyed susan is already playing host to caterpillars, possibly of species of checkerspot butterfly

Overall, I’m pleased with the progress of this planting as seen during this seeded prairie checkup. Days are getting shorter and we are almost to the cooler months of this planting’s first year when I can be pretty sure that these young prairie seedlings will have deep enough roots to survive about any weather conditions. Stay tuned for future updates about the development of this planting and consider how you too might add a seeded planting somewhere in your landscape.

High Demand for Native Plants

Posted on by Brad Guhr

Micro chips, new cars, used cars, houses, lumber, bikes, bike parts, energy,. . . and native plants. People really want these things right now. As vaccinations liberate Americans from their COVID hermitage, we get to see many distinct examples of high demand leading to short supply.

We learned during our recent Spring FloraKansas Plant Sale – when we moved ~16,000 plants over a four-day period – that there is a really high demand for native plants right now. Folks have spent more time in their home landscapes over the last year and are looking to practice ecological landscaping in levels we’ve never quite witnessed. It is fun for our staff to see this high demand for plants that please both wildlife and the people who plant them. FloraKansas is at the top of our list of events that help Dyck Arboretum of the Plains fully engage our mission to cultivate transformative relationships between people and the land.

A wildflower bouquet from my spring garden including columbine (pink), salvia (purple), rose verbena (light purple), golden ragwort (yellow), ‘Major Wheeler’ honeysuckle (red), and snowdrop windflower anemone (white) helps me appreciate native plants indoors too.

But our staff also experienced the stressful side of high demand and inadequate supply, as many wholesale plant orders either didn’t arrive as planned or came incomplete with numerous backorders occurring. Like never before, we had to scramble and pivot to convince members to consider options B, C, and D of a particular grass, wildflower, sedge, shrub or tree to replace option A that wasn’t in stock.

Calm before the storm – early morning light in the greenhouse before the first day of the plant sale.

We typically order most of our native and adaptable plants for our FloraKansas sale from wholesale providers that can produce the number of plants we need much more efficiently and cost effectively. However, during times like these when wholesalers are unable to meet demand, our thoughts turn to a couple of different methods of production on our own.

Digging and Transplanting

When a plant thrives in a given location and establishes a substantial root system, it will flower, set seed, and distribute new seedlings to its nearby surroundings. It will also often spread vegetatively via roots and develop a larger diameter crown. Both of these forms of reproduction offer us and you the opportunity to produce new plants.

Here at the Arboretum, weeding beds of grasses and wildflowers offers many opportunities to dig and transplant seedlings to new locations. Our grounds manager and horticulturalist, Katie Schmidt, is always plucking native wildflowers and grasses that are spreading where she doesn’t want them and either transplanting them to new locations or bolstering our plant sale.

An aspen grove has established nicely north of our Prairie Pavilion. But as clonal species do, it is now sending up unwanted root sprouts in adjacent wildflower beds as far as 20-30 feet away from the original trees. These are perfect candidates for digging and transplanting.
Yellow coneflowers that have spread in a bed will be potted and find a new home via our fall plant sale.

I like to divide older, established plants and move divisions around my yard. This establishment of new beds in my never-ending quest to reduce square footage of lawn takes physical effort, a good soil knife, regular watering in the first year, mulching and lots of weeding. But I enjoy the process, end result, and seeing the wildlife it attracts.

Plants that I transplanted from elsewhere in my yard have established nicely in less than two years: (counterclockwise around tree) coral bells (red leaf), narrow leaf coneflower, catmint, purple poppy mallow, mountain mint, and beardtongue penstemon.

Seed Collection and Germination

Our Dyck Arboretum Prairie Window Project reconstructed prairie was planted in stages from 2005 to 2010 with local ecotype seeds. The 120+ species planted include many great wildflowers, grasses and shrubs that are not always commonly available through the landscaping trade or even through our plant sales. This reality, and subsequently an opportunity, became apparent to me as I observed and photographed the following flowering species over the last couple of weeks following our sale.

  • New Jersey tea (Ceanothus herbaceus)
  • Plains wild indigo (Baptisia bracteata)
  • blue wild indigo (Baptisia australis var. minor)
  • ground-plum milk-vetch (Astragalus crassicarpus)
  • prairie parsley (Polytaenia nuttallii)
  • wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides)
  • Nuttall’s death camass lily (Zigadenus nuttallii)
  • blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium campestre)
  • MO evening primrose (Oenothera macrocarpa)
  • pale poppy mallow (Callirhoe alcaeoides)
  • wild onion (Allium canadense)
  • green antelopehorn (Asclepias viridis)

I will be watching over the next few weeks for these species to be setting seed and monitoring the right time to collect these seeds. With proper storage (i.e., cool, dry place in paper bags), stratification (i.e., cold/wet treatment for 60-90 days for most species), and hopefully good germination in the greenhouse next spring, I hope that we will be able to offer these species to you next spring.

You too can be on the lookout for seed from unique and interesting species to add to your landscape, and you don’t need to follow the labor intensive approach just outlined. Simply scatter your collected seeds into your intended planting area in the fall and let nature (i.e., gravity, freeze/thaw action, precipitation, and typical winter conditions) do the work for you. While the outcome of this approach is less certain than options described above, it is certainly easier and can add an element of surprise to your gardening adventures.