Think Spring….and Stratification!

Happy New Year!

Now that the holidays are over and our daylight hours are gradually getting longer, it’s time to begin thinking about our planting plans for the 2023 growing season.

You likely have already started to receive plant catalogs in the mail. While it may be too early to begin purchasing plants, it is a great time to start purchasing seeds. Seeds are a great and inexpensive way to increase the diversity of your planting project and grow species not commonly available in nurseries.

Purchasing native plant seeds now allows time to pre-treat the seeds in order to simulate natural conditions that seeds would experience on the soil surface over-winter. This natural process is called cold stratification. The stratification process helps the seeds to break dormancy, encouraging the seed to germinate once the weather warms. Stratification can range from just a few months for some species such as Common Milkweed (Asclepias syriaca) to years for many species of trillium.

While some species do not require stratification, the seeds of many plant species will not germinate without a stratification period. For more information and to learn about the different types of stratification, check out this Seed Stratification Guide.

So, if you want to experiment with growing your own native plants from seed, now is a great time to start! Just be sure to leave enough time for the stratification process.

Just a sugg-Jeff-tion!