Someone here directed me to this podcast on starting native plants from seed:
She made an excellent point about broadcasting: collecting native seeds is really hard, takes a lot of work, and inventory nationwide is relatively low compared to traditional gardening.
After spending her whole career collecting and sowing seeds she was pretty adamant that broadcasting was SUPER wasteful. The germination rate is a fraction as high as container sowing. The vast majority of the seeds won’t make it. The ones that do will be dealing with weeds (as will the gardener)
So for people who only broadcast and opt for “chaos gardening” i think it’s important to consider this:
If we claim to care so deeply about these plants why would we waste so many seeds? Why would we rob other gardeners the opportunity to plant native plants? So many species are always sold out and it’s frustrating.
If you forage your own seeds it’s a little different, and if you are sowing in a massive area you may need to broadcast…but ….I often think that it’s just more fun to say “look at me! I’m a chaos gardener!” and I get frustrated because for most people it just seems lazy to not throw some seeds in a few pots and reuse some plastic containers.
You’re wasting seeds!
by amilmore
24 Comments
>You’re wasting seeds.
not true unless they are dropping seeds into a mortar & pestle and grinding them into a paste or destroying them in some other way. if the seed is on the ground, it is not a waste. just because it did not germinate immediately doesn’t mean it will *never* germinate.
broadcasting *is* an inefficient way to start a garden though.
There are many considerations. Seeds that were broadcast and then sprouted were selected by nature.
Pick your battles. People aren’t hoarding seeds
Except when you germinate hard to germinate seeds with less vigorous seedlings and plant those plants, their offspring will have a greater likelihood of their seeds being hard to germinate with slower growing plants that have trouble competing.
Broadcast sowing, easier sprouting, more vigorous seedling are the ones that survive and those are more likely to create easy germinating especially vigorous seedlings.
Easy to argue both ways, and there are benefits for both arguments.
I saved seeds one year and kept track. My broadcast had maybe a 5% germination rate and a sub-1% success rate of producing a plant that survived the year. Maybe hundreds of seeds, and only three survived.
The next year I planted 15 seeds in 1 gallon growers’ pots and later transplanted and watered them until they were established.
I lost two. The rest grew, bloomed, went to seed and eventually started populating that patch of ground.
The way I see it, if it gets 10% germination off broadcast sees, the conditions were correct for that specific seed to sprout in that specific spot.
Seeing as I’m not sowing local ecotypes, all the more reason for whatever grows, to grow.
Granted that I’m possibly wasting money and seed broadcast sowing, there was never any of these species here in the first place besides goldenrod and like 1 or 2 new England aster.
Now there’s lobelia, swamp milkweed, 3 types of goldenrod, 4 types of aster, blue vervian, coneflower, blue lobelia,, lance leaf coreopsis, sedges, rushes Etc. all I saw sprout this past summer.
The lobelia was interesting now that I look at it’s requirements. I tossed a mix that contained like 0.5% blue lobelia into the edge of my pond loaded with reed Canary grass with no prep at all and it came up in 4 spot, it requires light to Germinate but it came up in a shade spot under a tree surrounded by RCG.
Having my uncle brush hog and mow everything I’m the backyard to 1 or 3″ in the spring to chop back the thatch. More will sprout because they got cold stratified, and sunlight after a mulch.
Before was plain Japanese brome and grass.
I dumped 52 species of native plants on an abandoned construction scraped 2000 square foot plot. I got them all free from a local native plant swap. We all collected our local stuff and brought them. Survival of those ideal for the location is what happened. Any that didn’t survive were eaten by squirrels, birds, or bugs or composted so that isn’t waste. All 52 species were local according to the Native Plant Society but that doesn’t mean they agree with the microclimate. Broadcasting was efficient and effective for my project.
I only collect my from own yard, and spread out the seeds where ever seems a good place for them to thrive. The fact that now I have too many plants and too many seeds might say that it is entirely dependent on the plant and seed if “chaos gardens” aren’t that great.
Oh no? That’s plants’ reproductive choice. Lots of seeds, few plants.
Why should I baby their offspring?
Broadcasting seed is beneficial when you have either expansive areas to cover or a limited time to do it, like when I help people plan for an acre of woodland redtoration. People who are broadcasting seed shouldn’t expect plug-like results.
This is not a case against broadcasting, it’s just repackaging what horticulturalists have known for ages.
I’m seeding my front yard because I simply can’t be bothered to plug start the 500sf worth of plugs when I can purchase (easily) the seed for just under $100. This is a pretty goofy take honestly.
IMO site prep is what really makes a difference. We had to sow a 1/4 acre meadow, but site prep was thorough, we sowed just as it was warm enough for seeds to do something, and I watered the first year until the plants were established. Germination was excellent, I guess? Quality seed companies calculate quantities needed, and I’m sure they take failure to launch into account.
I say I guess because I had at least a half dozen species that either didn’t germinate, were outcompeted for space by other species, or it wasn’t the right environment for them. But we had extremely dense plants that successfully crowded out weeds two summers in a row.
I suspect the latter, that it wasn’t the right environment. Last summer we did site prep on a different property; my yard guy said it was considerably richer soil. On the one hand I’m tempted to change up the seed mix for the sake of variety but I think the better course is to use the same mix and see how different conditions changes what succeeds.
I have had decent success broadcasting seed across ap well prepared, carefully chosen site after months of weed eradication/site prep.
But I see a lot on social media about ✨️chaos gardening✨️ and it’s just people throwing seeds around. Not going to work and I agree, it’s a waste of seeds and precious resources.
I chaos garden in my own yard because I have a greater success rate long-term by letting the seeds tell me where they want to grow. I don’t believe in just chucking seeds in parks and ditches and stuff.
Just to point out, spreading seed on a prepared area is not the same as just randomly throwing seeds around your property. Sowing direct in a prepared bed had worked well for me in the past.
I don’t agree with the take that broadcast seeding is a waste of seeds. Maybe if you are just buying seed and casting it off in places that are unprepared or are bad locations for those plants to begin with, but seed broadcasting is literally how prairie/meadow restoration works.
I’m sure the OP means well, and is probably talking about a specific situation, but even in a small well prepared spaces broadcasting seed works wonderfully. Preparation is key, and follow up maintenance mowing with invasive species control is necessary the first couple years, but there is nothing wrong with broadcasting or “chaos gardening” if a good management plan is in place.
Isn’t supply and demand still a thing? If they’re always getting sold out, someone’s got money to make by growing more.
Some plants don’t transplant well; direct sowing is the only way to grow them.
Site prep, location, location, location
It’s more-so about managing expectations of surface sowing seeds. Aside from annuals, most native perennials spend their first couple of years doing little more than building up a strong root system. It will take several years for them to be of flowering size.
Seeding a prairie restoration can take upwards of 10+ years, including mowing, to reach a “mature” appearance. And some people who do it never stop the seeding process.
>If we claim to care so deeply about these plants why would we waste so many seeds?
Many plants have adapted to create a literal many hundreds or thousands of seeds every season to reproduce. In nature, very very few seeds will actually germinate in one year. Those with a dormancy period may not germinate until years after hitting soil. Some can lay viable in the ground for a century, waiting for some disturbance to expose them to light so they can germinate.
A good case of “I think i’m feeding the birds in the most expensive way possible.” is basically how I feel about it.
Especially in the winter.
I even winter sowed in extra containers I had under neath a potting bench I made thinking “Eh hard to get to. Won’t need wire mesh…”
Nope. Still got em.
Agree to a point. However, note that if only one plant survives, it will likely make far more seeds than the packet it came from. And many of the seeds that get broadcast get eaten by birds and may come out the other end elsewhere, perfectly scarified and ready to germinate in the Spring.
I absolutely agree that sowing in protected containers will yield many more plants than broadcasting. I broadcast mainly seeds that I harvest on my own property. When I buy packets and sow into containers, I usually have some left over. If none of my friends want the extra, the rest is broadcast.
This is wild to me. I’m in an area where we have very limited information on what grew here before all of the invasives came in and a ton of microclimates and unpredictable variations in weather from one year to the next. The only way I’ve been able to figure out what would grow where in my yard was by putting things in by plug or by seed and seeing if they lived or died. I also don’t have the time, space, or knowledge to grow everything one seed at a time. I put a ton of seeds (that I was gifted) into a prepped bed in the fall and will see what grows. Having had totally new plants come up when conditions changed, I don’t consider that a waste at all. Like everything in life, what works for you does not mean it will work for everyone.
My collected seeds weren’t gonna go to better use, don’t worry.
I do most in pots but if there’s a plant I can’t be bothered to collect seeds from I’ll just tap the seeds out below it and let it take its course.
As others have mentioned, there is an in-between – and that in-between is my preference. I collect seeds from my own garden, from plants that have proven to reseed easily, and broadcast them in prepared areas before a big snow.
I don’t have the time, energy or desire to sow in containers, transplant, and then deal with establishing the transplants. I live in a hot, dry environment where establishing seedlings is a LOT of work and can require watering multiple times a day. I did that for the first few years and now I mostly take the easy way out.
I think this is misguided, at best. It really depends on what you are planting, and where, and how big an area you’re rewilding or gardening- ie your goals.
Sowing seed in sterile seed starting blends, potting soils, etc causes gene expression changes that could potentially reduce or remove adaptations that allowed species to thrive in the wild.
Broadcast sowing may have lower germination rates than potting up, but the seeds don’t disappear; they may feed or be transported by wildlife, or join the seed bank- Gailardia, or Blanket Flower, can have a viable germination after 150 years of dormancy.