Forest understory wildflowers in Minnesota?

[thomasg123]

Good afternoon,

I have about 6 acres of heavy woods that I was thinking of putting in wild flowers that grow in full shade and love moisture. I was thinking Forget me nots because I love blue and think a blanket of blue flowers would be awesome for the wife to look at out our back window but I guess most species are considered either a noxious weed or invasive in Minnesota. There are a couple species that are native but to fond a seed supplier is almost impossible. Anyone have any ideas or another solution?

[applestar]

Well, I think best plan is to get a mixture of native plants and seeds, not just one species -- especially considering the size of area. You are going to make a HUGE impact -- positive or negative -- and obviously positive is better, no?

There is most likely a Native Plant or Forestry Conservation group in your area. But one commercial source you may want to look at as a reference is Prairie Moon. They have wonderfully detailed catalog of plants and you can get seeds or started plants. I like reading up on the kinds of plants that are suitable for different kind of environment.

For example, for blue flowers, what about Virginia Bluebells?

Prairie Moon Nursery :: Seeds :: Mertensia virginica (Virginia Bluebells)
https://www.prairiemoon.com/seeds/wildfl ... bells.html

[rainbowgardener]

Get to know your local native plant society! https://mnnps.org/ They would LOVE to help you do something beneficial with your six acres, by planting appropriate native wildflowers. They can give you plant suggestions, supplier suggestions, etc.

Your state department of natural resources has lists of native plant suppliers:

https://www.dnr.state.mn.us/gardens/nati ... liers.html

If you contact some of these suppliers, I'm sure in return for six acres worth of business, they would love to work with you about what will work best for your situation and to give you some discounts for quantity.

You really will do better using a good mix of native plants. They are adapted to your soil/ climate/ conditions and so will be much hardier and low maintenance (with six acres, you want low maintenance! ). They will support a lot of butterflies, birds and other wildlife that cannot use the exotics. The mix is important (even if planting non-natives). Planting mono-cultures (besides being boring and a lot less useful to wildlife) is just asking for trouble. If you have that beautiful field of forget-me-nots (which incidentally only bloom in the spring and then are very nondescript looking the rest of the year - if you have a mix of plants you can have things blooming a lot more of the year) , it is a magnet for every pest and disease that attacks them. So you get an attack of powdery mildew, downy mildew, aster yellows or whatever. Bingo, your whole field is wiped out. If you have a diverse planting, it is not as much of a magnet in the first place; the diseases/ pests don't spread as fast, because whatever plant they like is separated from other individuals by a bunch of plants they don't like; and worse case scenario if all the individuals of one kind of plant are wiped out, you still have all the other kinds.

Ferns are perfect plants for moist, shady spots and they look beautiful mixed in with flowering plants. Notice how florist bouquets usually put some greenery with the flowers (often fern fronds). The greenery sets the flowers off so much better.

Here's a list of some of my favorite winter hardy moist shade wildflowers (all native to MN) that you can talk to suppliers about:

Columbine
Jack-in-the-Pulpit
Wild ginger
Chelone/ turtlehead
Bunchberry - creeping dogwood, a low ground cover that gets those beautiful dogwood flowers
Coral root
Dutchman’s breeches
Trout lily
Gentian
Hepatica
St John’s wort
Michigan lily
Cardinal flower
Great blue lobelia
Mayapple
Solomon’s seal
Virginia bluebells
Obedient Plant
Jacob’s ladder
Blood root
Goldenrod
Asters
Meadow-rue
Tiarella/ foam flower
Various trilliums
Bellwort
Ironweed
Violets

A couple notes: a number of these (e.g. trillium, trout lily, dutchman's breeches, Jack-in-the-pulpit, etc) are known as spring ephemerals. It is a common adaptation to life in the forest. Pop up very early, before the trees leaf out, while you can still get sunshine. Run through your life cycle quickly and be done and dormant by summer when the canopy is fully re-established. But there's a good mix of other stuff in there.

A number of these (especially bunchberry and hepatica) have to have acidic soil. You should check yours, but I'm guessing your wooded acres do have acidic soil.

Best Wishes and please keep us posted with what you decide, what you come up with, and how it looks later. We would love to see your before and after pictures!! What a treasure to have six wooded acres to work with!

[Susan W]

As this is your 1st post, won't go into great details. I'll just add a couple of things.
If you have had the property for awhile, what is already growing, especially in spring?
Try to focusion a do-able area seen from the window. Wild flowers are slow to get going, and often just bloom in spring (mentioned above).
Check regional resources as mentioned.
Starting wildflowers from seed not easy. For many if you can get germination, usually 1 year out to bloom.

[rainbowgardener]

Good comments from Susan. Do your planning and discussions with suppliers now. If you want to do wildflowers from seed, many of them do best planted in the fall. The seeds need the cold of winter to get them ready and then the spring temperature change to wake them up.