It's Time to Sow Your Seeds

Successfully growing plants from seed in Central Oregon is challenging. It’s also fun, inexpensive and deeply rewarding, once you learn the basics.

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

“There’s nothing wrong with buying plant starts from nurseries,” she says, “but it’s more economical to put seeds in the ground yourself, and it can be extremely satisfying to see them grow.”

Showy milkweed, a plant crucial to the survival of the Monarch butterfly. Credit: Lisa Sanco

Sanco, a board member for Pollinator Pathway Bend, is especially passionate about teaching others how to raise 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, 1-acre demonstration garden where they raise native plants and collect the seeds to sell in the pub.

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 soil, Sanco says fall and winter are the best seasons for sowing nearly all native seeds.

Colder seasons are ideal for planting because most native seeds (and spring-blooming bulbs) need to go through a process known as cold stratification, in which they are 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 sow your seeds outside, where they can overwinter in containers or yards.

How to nurture native seeds

Right now you can buy packets full of wildflower seeds — everything from blue flax to orange globe mallow — at Worthy Pub, WinterCreek Nursery and Central Oregon Locavore.

The challenge is to turn those tiny seeds into thriving plants in Central Oregon’s famously hostile growing conditions. Of the many methods, Sanco says the simplest is to scatter the seeds across weed-free ground, after first laying down a small amount of compost.

“Gardening in the high desert is challenging and full of failures, but that only makes it more gratifying when you succeed.”
— Lisa Sanco

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. They need light, so don’t bury them under a lot of soil — a light dusting is all you need.

For even greater protection from wind and hungry birds, Sanco often waits to scatter seeds until January or even early February. The ideal time is right 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.

Watering usually isn’t necessary until April or May, or whenever you see plant starts emerging from the soil. Water the starts consistently and lightly, up to every day, for the first few weeks, keeping the soil moist but not wet. You can go longer between watering sessions as root systems mature. In summer, it’s generally best to soak plants twice a week, adjusting depending on conditions including soil type and how exposed the plants are to wind and sun.

As summer turns to fall 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.

Lisa Sanco harvests seeds in the garden. Credit: Lisa Sanco

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

In year two and beyond, water your native plants beginning in June, or whenever temperatures consistently hit 75 degrees. Keep that up through August, providing a weekly or bi-weekly soaking of 15 to 30 minutes with an overhead sprayer or an hour or more with a drip system.

Sanco says the relatively small amount of time and attention needed to grow native plants from seed is well worth it. “Gardening in the high desert is challenging and full of failures,” 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.

This article appears in Source Weekly November 7, 2024.