A Seed is a Seed….Or is It?

While browsing the internet, you chanced upon some conservation websites. While there, you learned about the shrinking areas of natural habitat available for wildlife and pollinators due to overuse of pesticides, development, pollution, and climate change. You discovered how people are replacing useless monocrops such as grass with diverse selections of native flora to feed and shelter pollinators and other creatures. The pictures are lovely – the rainbow of colors and the variety of plants really dress up the landscape.

That's when it hits you. The weed-free manicured lawn bordered by neat little beds of ornamental flowers you've treasured for years is not only drab and boring but also an ecological wasteland as far as the natural world is concerned. And you're determined to change it!

Before your epiphany, you bought plants from the big box stores and transplanted them into your yard without considering how your landscaping impacted the living beings sharing that space with you. You never really noticed the lack of animals, bugs, or birds until you started looking for them.

Now, you want to make a positive difference in your little part of the world by transforming your yard into a paradise of flowers, trees, and shrubs for all the flittering, buzzing, and crawling critters needing a home.

The challenge of growing native flowers from seed sounds exciting. Of course, you could easily look for potted plants, but gardening from scratch will be a new experience – something you've never tried before.

Before you can get down and dig in the dirt, there's the process of choosing flowers to grow and purchasing the seeds. After perusing numerous resource guides, you come up with a list but hit a stone wall when you start shopping around. Nurseries and online retailers offer countless varieties of plants in all different shapes, sizes, and colors. There's no such thing as a plain ole aster or zinnia. So which ones should you buy? Decisions, decisions.  

Is One Seed or Plant the Same as Another?

Simply put – No!

First, there are some terms you need to be familiar with:

·         Native - Straight native plant species occur in the wild and reproduce without intervention from people. Their diversity makes them more tolerant of disease, changes in growing conditions, climate, and other factors. Animals, birds, and invertebrates have co-evolved with native plants for thousands of years.

• Keystone plants play a crucial role in its ecosystem and provide a critical source of food and/or shelter for other plant and animal species.

·         Exotic - A plant not native to the continent where it is now found. "Alien" and "non-native" are synonyms. Not all non-native plants are invasive.

·         Invasive plant - A plant not native to an ecosystem in which it grows. Its intentional or accidental introduction causes economic or environmental harm.

·         Cultivar - A plant that humans have manipulated for a particular trait, i.e., flower color, foliage color, fruit color, shape, size, pest resistance, growth habit, disease resistance, longer bloom times, or stronger stems.  Cultivars can be identified by having the species names followed by a variety name in quotation marks. (Example: Echinacea purpurea 'Pica Bella')

·         Nativars – A nativar is a cultivar that originated from a straight-species NATIVE plant. Nativars can begin as a genetic variant of a plant found in nature, but it is then selected and propagated to enhance the genetic modifications.

·         Hybrid - A plant created by cross-breeding two or more entirely different species to create a new plant. A hybrid is sometimes indicated by an X in its name. For example, Magnolia acuminata x denudata 'Elizabeth' is a hybrid between a plant native to Missouri and a Chinese species.

Native plants, particularly the keystone species, are the backbone of any pollinator or wildlife garden. Mother Nature's master plan created a world where all living things meshed together into a well-choreographed ballet. Over the millennia, plants developed symbiotic relationships with the creatures inhabiting the same ecoregion—a relationship where one depended upon the other for the continuation of their respective species.

Over time, changes in precipitation, temperatures, soil type, or other environmental factors fine-tuned the relationships into specific ecotypes unique to that location.

This all boils down to the fact that when you're planning your garden, you need to look for native plants and ecotypes that will blend in with the existing native plants in your area.

Stephanie Frischie, Native Plant Materials Specialist at the Xerces Society for Invertebrate Conservation, understands how this can be confusing and why some people believe that as long as it's a straight species (a native plant), that's all that matters.

Stephanie pointed out the difference. "A plant can be native across a wide area, within which there are many smaller-scale changes in climate, soils, altitude, etc. So, for instance, if you're in Minnesota and the source of seeds or plants you purchase originated in Texas, you might end up with flowers blooming too early for your area."

Another example: even though Echinacea is native to the entire state of North Carolina, the ecotypes vary between the coastal region and the mountainous western part of the state. In other words, since ecotypes are adapted to their local growing conditions, you need to seek out locally sourced seed or plant materials from conditions similar to your own.

Finding a local store selling locally sourced ecotypes may be difficult. If a nursery is offering them, they will have a limited inventory. Therefore, the availability will range from widely scattered to non-existent.

It's the same with online distributors. Prairie Moon in Minnesota is a favorite website of gardeners looking for native plants. Although they purchase their seeds and plants from different places, they will try to help customers in their area who are looking for locally sourced products. This is an excellent asset for folks living in the Midwestern states.

However, that doesn't mean the rest of the country has been neglected. No matter where you live in the US, other fantastic resources exist for locating the seeds you need. The National Wildlife Federation has an excellent website for finding keystone plants by ecoregion. They also have lists of native plant types and tons of other information.

Xerces' Native Plant, Seed and Services Directory is a searchable database tool that can help you find suppliers of native plants, native seeds, and related services. From that same directory page, there's a link that will take you to their Pollinator Conservation Resource Center and also to various plant lists. Xerces also has a free Habitat Assessment Guide that will walk you through whatever type of project you want, whether it's a flowerbed, your whole yard, or a community garden.

And don't forget your state's Native Plant Society, university-based agricultural extension services, master gardeners, garden clubs, or any conservation organizations working in your area.

Two other sources are:

https://www.audubon.org/native-plants

https://www.nwf.org/nativeplantfinder/plants

There you go. Now, you've got everything you need to find the seeds for your garden. Go for it. Happy Gardening, Everyone!

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