I can not tell you how happy this little guy is making me – Prairie Dropseed

1 Comment

1. 

   thatfatbastard 2 months ago

   Prairie Dropseed – Sporobolus heterolepis

   I have had terrible luck germinating Prairie Dropseed. I just went outside, and this little guy was poking up… and two more of his friends!

   This year I bought a quarter ounce of seed because I was determined to get *some* of it to germinate, and hopefully live long enough until I can get it in the ground. I’m trying a couple of different ways. Some seed I soaked overnight in room temp water then trayed up with a vented dome, some I have in the fridge cold stratifying, but this tray I just put straight from the packet in to a tray. It has kind of been stratifying in that for almost a month, but this tray has no lid and has been sitting on a retaining wall in full sun. I’ve been keeping it watered, sometimes twice a day.

   Seems that I’m not alone in my troubles with this species. According to what I can find on the internet, Prairie Dropseed has a terrible germination rate, and nobody seems to agree on the best way to germinate it.

   Dropseed is not native to my county. In fact, it’s only native to [one county in Virginia](https://vaplantatlas.org/index.php?do=plant&plant=1721&search=Search), but that county is adjacent to mine. I’d love to have a bunch to create some garden borders – I’m talking hundreds. So we’ll see how that turns out.

   BTW, yes, that is sleet in the cell. It was 85 degrees yesterday and then this morning the temp dropped down in to the 30s and we got about half an inch of “wintry mix”.

   If you’ve seen some of my previous posts then you’ll know that I’m starting almost 60 species this year. The past few days I’ve been seeing lots of seedlings pop up, though I still have some trays that aren’t showing anything yet. I still have 2 “A” species, Sneezeweed and Heath Aster, that I’ve been waiting for warmer weather to get started. I’ll probably get those going next week.