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February 14, 2013 · 8 Comments

The DIY Meadow Project

How to· Plants

meadow 2011

This is the area I’m hoping to improve this year, with more wildflowers and native grasses.

The biggest garden project I have planned for 2013 is to plant more prairie-style plants in the meadow behind my house, which runs adjacent to a city-owned walking path. It’s my DIY meadow project for the year. While I planted wildflowers in it when we first moved out here, this area has become overrun with wild parsnip, giant ragweed and a few other real bad-boys of the plant world. I’ve undertaken some steps to remove the invasives and plan to replace them with grasses and wildflowers native to Minnesota. My hope is that this area will provide lots of nectar for butterflies and bees, seeds and nesting sites for birds and beauty for all the humans that pass by it each day.

I’ve ordered both plants and seeds from Prairie Moon Nursery in Winona for the DIY meadow, which is one of several outstanding native plants nurseries in our area. Why order both plants and seeds? Insurance — plain and simple. The plants will come in May, all ready to grow, having been started and nurtured by the pros at Prairie Moon. That’s great, but the plants are not cheap. Seeds, on the other hand, are cheap, so I’m hoping to get more plants at a lower cost by growing some myself for the DIY meadow.

sunflowers in meadow

Sunflowers have done well in my meadow, but I’m hoping to add greater variety of native plants.

Since most wildflowers require what’s called cold stratification, winter sowing is the perfect method for starting wildflower seeds. Cold stratification means that the seeds need to experience the cold of winter before they will germinate. I put out a call on Facebook for some milk jugs to use for winter sowing, and so far — thank to my friends Betsy and Marcia — I have about 25 jugs.

The idea behind winter sowing is that you create a little greenhouse for the seeds, by filling the milk jug with very wet potting soil, planting the seeds, sealing it up and putting it out in the cold. The seeds will freeze and thaw and refreeze as the weather moves from winter to spring. Eventually they will start sprouting, at which point you begin exposing them to more air and opening up the little greenhouses.

Tomorrow I’ll write more about how to set up winter sowing containers. Here are the seeds I’ll be starting in my containers:

Golden Alexanders (Zizia aurea)

Foxglove beardtongue (Penstemon digitalis)

Sweet Joe Pye weed (Euptorium purpureum)

Short’s aster (Aster shortii)

Nodding onion (Allium cernuum)

Butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa)

Rattlesnake master (Eryngium yuccifolium)

Common ironweed (Vernonia fasciculata)

White prairie clover (Dalea candida)

Spotted beebalm (Monarda punctata)

Meadow blazing star (Liatris ligulistylis)

What are your favorite prairie plants?

Related posts:

  1. How to Use the Winter Sowing Method to Start Seeds Outdoors It’s still a bit early for starting seeds indoors in...
  2. Weed of the Week: Wild Parsnip We’ve had an early spring this year, and I’ve been...
  3. Book Review: Wildflowers of Minnesota A Gardener’s Reading, 10 of 30 By Stan Tekiela (Adventure...
« Favorite Garden Photos of 2012
How to Winter Sow Wildflowers »

Comments

  1. Bobbie Harrington says

    February 28, 2021 at 8:32 pm

    hello!
    i was so happy to run across your website. i live on rainy lake in ontario just across border from minnesota. i live on 2 acres of land, most of it lawn when i moved in, now mostly meadow. i’ve been slowly getting wild flowers and perennials growing where there was grass. everyone here thinks winter sowing is crazy, as well as, making a meadow out of the lawn. so it was like finding kindred spirit when i read about what you are doing! it took me some experimenting to find winter sowing is great for wild flowers, as you well know. i have 12 raised beds and 44 garden bags placed here in suitable sunny areas. living on the cambrian shield there is lack of soil for regular gardens, but good for wild flowers. i started with gloriosa daisies and lupins as they re-seed well. i have bought seed from prairie moon, however not this year as not allowed to cross the border to reach my international falls mail box. now i’ll read more of your gardening information. i’m 84. gardening keeps me going and i keep my gardens going. with time left for fishing walleye, too.

  2. Mary Schier says

    March 1, 2021 at 10:55 am

    Thanks so much for commenting! Your meadow sounds lovely. Gardening does keep us young.

Trackbacks

  1. How to Winter Sow Wildflowers | My Northern Garden says:
    February 15, 2013 at 9:42 am

    […] ← The Meadow Project […]

  2. Winter Sowing Native Plants, Two Ways | My Northern Garden says:
    February 16, 2015 at 10:52 am

    […] pleasant 30-degree weather here in Minnesota, perfect weather for winter sowing native plants for the meadow I maintain behind my house. The meadow has been challenging, to say the least. There is a lot of […]

  3. Winter Sowing Native Plants, Two Ways – My Northern Garden says:
    August 10, 2018 at 3:17 pm

    […] pleasant 30-degree weather here in Minnesota, perfect weather for winter sowing native plants for the meadow I maintain behind my house. The meadow has been challenging, to say the least. There is a lot of […]

  4. How to Winter Sow Wildflowers says:
    October 6, 2018 at 10:06 pm

    […] part of my big project for 2013, I’ll be using winter sowing containers to grow several kinds of wildflowers from seed. […]

  5. Update on the Meadow Project 2 says:
    October 6, 2018 at 10:23 pm

    […] in?” Those are insurance — a guarantee that I won’t accidentally pull one of the native plants I’m putting in this wild […]

  6. Update on the Winter Sowing Containers - My Northern Garden says:
    May 28, 2020 at 2:33 pm

    […] let the plants get up to size and then, over time, transplant them out to the meadow where they will add color to the grasses and other plants I purchased from Prairie Moon […]

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Are you trying winter sowing this year? Now is a g Are you trying winter sowing this year? Now is a good time to sow perennials. Winter sowing is a way to get more plants at less cost by sowing seeds outdoors in mini-greenhouses in winter. The best greenhouse is a one-gallon milk jug. (Edit: leave the caps off! This was my first attempt at winter sowing and I did it wrong. The podcast episode explains why.) 

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Poinsettias are nice but kind of tough to keep goi Poinsettias are nice but kind of tough to keep going with the heat running 24/7. So how about some holiday plants that are not poinsettias. Norfolk Island pine, rosemary, paperwhites, amaryllis or any houseplant with red veining add that holiday cheer and are easier to keep alive or are not meant to last, so no need for guilt when they are gone. 

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