Seed time!

January 31st.  Wow.  My greenhouse is still sitting outside... unheated.  I'm trying to be frugal and hold off heating it, so I think I'll get the seed mat out this weekend and start some seedlings downstairs in the basement. 

     I have a pile of seed packets from the local farm supply store.  Some annuals, some perennials, some vegies.  I also have an awesome order of native plant seeds that I recently ordered from Prairie Moon Nursery out of Minnesota.

     I ordered some anise hyssop (Agastache foeniculum) which is a great plant for bees, butterflies and hummingbirds.  I've grown it before and it makes a great perennial for mid to back of the border.  I like it paired up with daisies and the butterflies definitely don't mind!  It's also commonly referenced as an herb as the leaves can be used for teas and have a licorice like scent when crushed.


     For our wet, marshy area at the cottage, I'm going to try Alisma triviale (water plantain) and Calla palustris (water arum).  According to Prairie Moon, the water plantain has oval basal leaves about 12" tall and form a rosette.  A whorled panicle of small white flowers blooms during summer. It prefers full or partial sun and mucky soil or shallow, slow-moving, even stagnant water. It withstands drought better than most aquatic plants.  I'm thinking this will be perfect for the area I have in mind.  The seed does require cold moist stratification, so they are in the fridge!  The water arum also requires cold stratification and has dark green leaves with a white spathe style bloom.  I'll get back to you on the germination and growth for both of these.  I think my biggest concern will be if they dry out too much in the greenhouse once the bright spring sun start warming the greenhouse. 

    I'm also trying out some native shrubs.  Buttonbush, or cephalanthus occidentalis will be a great woodland shrub for some of the moist areas.  It will grow in full sun to partial shade and has interesting white flowers, again attractive to bees and butterflies.  It will even tolerate some flooding, which is a must for the edges of our wet area.  It gets 5-12 foot tall and 4-8 foot wide, so I have some ideas where to use it for a great screening plant.  The seed doesn't require any special pretreatment, so I'm hoping for quite a bit of success.  Who knows.... If I have too many (too many?  is there such a thing?)... I can always donate some to the neighboring boy scout camp for some of their wetland areas.
     The other shrub I'm going to try is Ilex verticillata or winterberry.  It is a deciduous holly that has lot of great red berries up and down the stems in the winter.  It's probably the hardest one to get germinated.  Per Prairie Moon it requires two periods of cold moist stratification.  I'll be pulling out my old college textbook on propagation on this one.  Anyway, the berries are great for the birds.  I'm hoping to be able to make a few naturalized groupings to create a little more natural screen between our property and some distant neighbors.  The other big hurdle I will be facing though is the deer.   I have read this is a preferred browse species, and we definitely have deer at the cottage!

Get ready... plant!