It's Time to Sow Your Seeds

Hey, it's been a while! Like, years! That pandemic we're trying hard to forget caused a glitch in my blog-writing system, but I'm working my way back, and I hope you are too.

Recently I've been writing a few nature-themed articles for the Source Weekly, Bend's weekly newspaper. Here's one updated piece from late last year that's full of perhaps misguided optimism about growing plants from seed in Central Oregon. You can also read the original version at the Source Weekly website.

Sow Your Seeds

To successfully grow a plant from seed in Portland, throw the seed outside. To do the same in Central Oregon, massage the seed gently for three hours, pray to your preferred deity, and lay the seed in the soil while issuing an incantation known only to Master Gardeners.

Growing plants from seeds in Central Oregon is really challenging. It’s also fun, inexpensive, and deeply rewarding, once you learn the basics.

Getting started with native plants

Few people understand the struggles and rewards better than Lisa Sanco, the executive director of Worthy Environmental.

“There’s obviously nothing wrong with buying plants from nurseries,” she says, “but it can be so much more satisfying to put seeds in the ground yourself and figure out how to help them grow.”

Sanco, a board member for Pollinator Pathway Bend, is especially passionate about teaching others how to grow native plants. Native species, from buckwheats to goldenrods, grow naturally in Central Oregon and have co-evolved with native pollinators like bumblebees.

Alongside Worthy’s popular eastside pub, Sanco and her team tend to a public, one-acre demonstration garden filled with native wildflowers and other plants, most of which they’ve grown on-site from seeds.

Plant seeds in fall or winter, not spring

Tempting as it may be to plant seeds in spring, when the days grow longer and we can’t wait to sink our hands into the dirt, Sanco says fall and winter are the best seasons for planting nearly all native seeds.

Fall and winter are ideal because most native seeds (and spring-blooming bulbs) need to go through a process known as cold stratification, in which they’re first exposed to a period of cold temperatures, before being hit by warm temps.

Requiring cold before warmth is nature’s ingenious way of ensuring that seeds don’t germinate at inopportune times, like right before winter.

Seeds can be cold-stratified artificially, in a refrigerator, but the easiest method is to do what nature does and plant your seeds outside, where they can overwinter in containers or yards.

How to nurture native seeds

You can buy packets of native seeds — including everything from penstemons to primroses — at Worthy Pub, WinterCreek Nursery, and Locavore Market and Grocery.

The question, of course, is how to turn those seeds into thriving plants in Central Oregon’s famously hostile growing conditions. Of the many ways, the simplest is probably the scatter method, which involves scattering seeds on weed-free ground after first laying down a small amount of compost.

The seeds need to be spread out so they don’t grow on top of one another, and a light raking is helpful to ensure they make contact with the soil. Most native seeds are tiny and need light for germination, so avoid burying them under a lot of soil — a light dusting is usually all you need.

For even greater protection from wind and hungry birds, Sanco says she often waits to scatter seeds until January or even early February. The ideal time is just before a snowfall because the snow will hide the seeds from birds and the eventual snowmelt will help to work the seeds into the ground.

Be sure to note where you plant your seeds, so you'll recognize them when they poke through the soil in April or May. That's when you'll want to start watering. Water consistently, up to every day, but not so often or deeply that puddles quickly form.

As the plants mature from June through August, you can skip days between watering, but you’ll still want to keep the soil moist.

When fall arrives and high temperatures come down to the 70s, Sanco advises tapering your watering further, eventually stopping so the plants can enter their normal winter dormancy.

Year two and beyond After babying your plants through that first year of growth, you can reduce your efforts — but they’ll still need a helping hand. Although native plants grow unaided in natural areas, they need our continued assistance in landscaped spaces because we’ve disturbed the soil and broken up their underground fungal networks.

In year two and beyond, water native plants about once a week beginning in June, or whenever temperatures consistently hit 75 degrees. Keep that up through August, providing a weekly soaking — a half-hour with an overhead sprayer or an hour or more with a drip system — to encourage root growth.

Sanco says the relatively small amount of time and attention needed to grow native plants is well worth it. “Gardening in the high desert is different and challenging,” she admits, “but that only makes it more gratifying when you succeed.”

To learn more about native plants and how to grow them from seed, visit worthyenvironmental.org.