Sowing Local Native Seeds

I have two shoeboxes filled with envelopes of seeds and fruits that I haven't yet cleaned. Today I cleaned and sowed some of them:

Heuchera micrantha, Alum root
Eriophyllum confertiflorum, Golden yarrow
Aquilegia formosa, Western Columbine (fruits and seeds shown above)
Rubus parviflorus, Thimbleberry
Iris fernaldii
Clarkia amoena, Farewell to spring (maybe - some kind of clarkia that grows locally through June - July)

It may not be exactly the right time, but this year is so different from ordinary years, I thought I'd just have a bash anyway.

I checked my Seed Propagation of Native California Plants, by Dara Emery, and none of the above need special treatment.


I checked my Growing California Native Plants, by Marjorie G. Schmidt, who recommended putting the containers of seeds in something that you can water from below, then covering the top with glass and newspaper till the seeds germinate, then removing the newspaper and raising the glass, protecting the seeds from afternoon sun, till they are ready to transplant.

So I took two seed trays and sandwiched a sheet of plastic between them, and filled them with three inch pots. Then I repeated that procedure:


I was lazy about the mix - it should have been a nice fine mix but I used the last batch I had made up, which contains great boulders (compared to the seeds) of perlite. Oh well, they will have to be tough. It's about 1/3 perlite, 1/3 vermiculite and 1/3 peat, with too much osmocote fertilizer. I hope they all like their rich diet.

I sprinkled the seeds thinly in the pots, and covered them lightly with sifted peat. A little deeper for the iris which have chunky seeds, nice and hard and ready. The clarkia seeds were also nice and ripe, and the thimbleberry required only an hour of soaking then some smooshing in a sieve to get the seeds separated from the fruit. I was very happy with the quality of the seeds. The heuchera seeds are like sand, so tiny, and black.

I didn't have glass for a covering but Wood Rat found some bits of polycarbonate.

Here's the final result:

I weighed the newspaper down with sundry objects de ne pas art. I might find strips of wood that would be better. It's in a shady spot right now but I might move it where it'll get more indirect bright light.

Good luck little seeds!