HelpfulGardener.com

Next spring part of my plans are going to be to put down and start up a lot of wild flowers. I want to line the edges of a field and ideally I'd like to get a 4'-5' wide path going and I'm figuring I'll need enough seed for a total of 300 linear feet at that width. I'm in zone 5 and want to plant flowers that attract beautiful wildlife, replenish themselves every year, and look nice. I know I'm not going to get by with the little bags I find in the store, so I'm trying to figure out where to buy maybe a couple 50# bags of this type of seed mix. If anyone has any suggestions, I'd appreciate it.

I'm going to be renting a tractor with tiller this spring and I'm going have the ground all prepped before I start any of this, but part of getting everything in line for this project is having the seed ready to go. Thanks for any help!

Prairie Moon! https://www.prairiemoon.com/ They are based in MN and specialize in Midwest native wildflowers and grasses. They sell bare root plants and seed. The seed you can get for individual plants in sizes of 1/8th oz to 1 oz. One oz. does not sound like a lot, but that may be 5000 seeds or 60,000 seeds depending on the plant. They also sell a variety of seed mixes. They have one they call pollinator-palooza, designed to attract bees, butterflies and other pollinators. It comes in sizes for 500 sq ft ($19) or 1000 sq ft ($29) to 1/4 acre ($223). But they have a variety of other mixes designed for different sun exposure/ soil types.

You could probably stretch the 1000 sq ft size to cover your 1200 or so sq ft. That is way cheaper than buying enough little packets to cover your area and it is a quality mix of true native flowers and grasses - people don't always realize how important it is to include some grasses. The catalog tells you exactly what is in the mix and what % of the mix is each. The mixes sold in regular stores are often mainly one or two common weedy plants and a teeny bit of a bunch of other things you would really want.

Their catalog is beautiful! Have fun.

Incidentally, seed is very light. You do NOT want two 50 pound bags of seed. Catalog says seeding rate for the pollinator mix is 6.8 pounds /acre. That would be 1.7 pounds for the qtr acre size. A qtr acre is 10890 sq feet. Your 1200 square feet is only a little more than one tenth of that, so about 3 ounces of seed! If you want to splurge on the 1/8th acre size ($115, should cover 5,445 sq feet) you are still talking about less than a pound of seed.

These aren't beans or corn kernals you are talking about. Many of these have teeny seeds like dust.

Within 45 minutes of posting your question, you got a good detailed answer.

It would be conventional to say thank you.

rainbowgardener wrote:Within 45 minutes of posting your question, you got a good detailed answer.

It would be conventional to say thank you.

You are correct. I got a great answer. I appreciate it. THANK YOU!

Generally, when I post a question in any forum and I get a single response and not a discussion I read it and move along. I post my questions in many forums because some are more lively and active. Case in point, one single response here. Still though, I know a lot of people have their pride and emotions attached to everything they type on the internet. You asked for a pat on the back and for me to say thanks. I hope I didn't offend any sensitivities you have on the topic at hand by not saying thanks soon enough. Thank you for your help, and the detailed response in such a timely manner.

So did you get some seeds? It's probably planting time now.

Yes, I got some seeds, but in two batches. Last year I bought a bunch of different wildflower mixes and other varieties of flower seeds that I never go planted. I ended up cleaning out my garage and dumped all these seed mixes into a shoebox sized container nearly overflowing. I mixed them all up and spread them where I wanted flowers. I'm not completely optimistic on how many seeds are still viable, or how many will take off.

Where I spread the seeds out is high heavy weeds. I'm going to be mowing it all down soon and once that's done I'll spread out another layer of wildflower mix that I bought in bags from Lowes this year. I'm not sure what kind of a success rate I'll end up having, but my seeds with lower odds were put out a week or two ago before all these spring rains which was probably the better time. The fresher seeds will be getting out shortly. I just have to put the deck back on the mower and start hacking things down first.