Every spring starts in my living room in February and March.
I collected seeds all last autumn, a compulsive habit born of years of desire. Rambling about, Juniper and I inevitably see something—
“Oh, my god, I want that!” I say, pointing to an unfamiliar plant.
“Mom, you always say that!” she teases…
Thanks to friend Sid, a 30-gallon tub waits by our door. A bale of peat moss is thawing in the bathtub; bags of ocean/guano compost, thawing by the easy chair. Cases of seed flats, root pruning flats and eco cones fill the truck bed. Over the next two weeks, all of these materials will coalesce into a production line that ultimately will become thousands of seedlings.
This is our second year of Seedling Hotel, built with the help of friend Art. Four stories high, separated by CMU blocks, each level is a repurposed fluorescent light ballast with four LED tubes. Each level will hold four flats. Each flat contains 96 eco cones, most often, of a single species.
Seeds germinate under different conditions; a most fascinating puzzle! All species in the Seedling Hotel will be simple seeds with simple needs. We can sow them directly into the soil mix; sometimes on the surface because they need light to sprout. Others will be sown an eighth- to quarter-inch deep, and tamped, for seed-to-soil contact. Seeds absorb moisture directly from the soil, so if we didn’t tamp, there might be too much air space around the seeds for them to absorb water.
In comparison to simple seeds, there are species with more demanding seeds. Some seed species need a “winter nap” or they won’t flower or perform the way they’re supposed to. Think of garlic, which we plant in the fall. It sprouts a bit and goes to sleep. Upon waking, it shoots up, sets a flower, and forms its bulb. Without that cold nap — were I to plant in the spring — the garlic would shoot up but not flower and bulb out.
So, in the next several weeks, I’ll also fill 30 to 40 seed flats with the grasses and forbs species in need of cold naps. I’m especially excited about the multitude of milkweed species we’re growing, and the slew of Astragalus species.
To paint a picture — you know those islands of fluffy ground covers at the Nature Park that have those black rattle pods every autumn? Those are Astragalus. In addition to white, they bloom throughout the West in pinks, yellows, lavenders. But more importantly, they perform an ecological service. As legumes (think pealike), they’re “nitrogen fixers,” pulling nitrogen from the air into the soils, usable as a fertilizer. And, of course, they provide habitat: nectar and pollen for pollinators; protein-rich seeds for the voles and mice — food for the hawks and buteos that flock to that park!
I use “forb” versus “wildflower” for the species I choose intentionally, based on their roles in an ecosystem. These species have evolved through millennia to attract specific insects versus human appreciation! So they’re worth the extra work of wintertime naps!
Other seeds need their coats cracked or nicked to sprout. This lets the seed absorb enough water to sprout before it simply rots. You might be familiar with “scarification” from starting your own morning glory seeds. So, we’ll do the “tedious” work of rubbing layers of seed between sheets of sandpaper, binging on our final season of “Stranger Things.” (It’s definitely time for a lighter series!)
For me, sitting in a living room or a greenhouse filled with living plants is heaven. It just feels nourishing, as though their health and vigor could rub off on me, fill me… summer all around me in the midst of winter, still. These seeds we sow are “friends,” discovered on hikes and walks, or in another’s garden, or in a sexy-ass photo online or in a book. Most of the seeds I’m growing are because I simply can’t find these species in a nursery.
My aesthetic has changed significantly in the face of species collapse and migration, planetary systems collapse, global warming and climate change. The big and colorful have their place — in fact, my favorite flower catalog is Annie’s Annuals and Perennials, a California nursery featuring some really far out stuff (Google: “echiums”).
But here, in the Roaring Fork Valley, where I directly experience this accelerating change on so many levels, I’ve found that the subtleties and nuances of native plant ecosystems blow my heart wide open in ways that exotics simply cannot. And it is these lesser known, seldom grown plants that I’m dedicating my attention to these days.