Compulsive Seed Disorder!

This was to be the year that I slowed down on germinating seeds.  Since 2017, I have built 2 rain gardens, converted bark mulched, depleted, depleted home-depot areas with living landscapes and biologically active soils, done and re-done the edges along my driveway, planted a shade garden from shrubs and seeds in a former chicken pen, planted fruit trees, created a perennial border along Woodbury Avenue in front of the historic stone wall, and added a few pocket gardens here and there.  Time for break right?  Well, that's what I thought....

But collecting wild seeds is a passion.  It can make you feel that the habitat losses due to development and invasive species can be mitigated, offset, or  even reversed if others follow your lead.  But how will they if all people can find are home-depot clones sold as natives when they are not.  People do not have access to wild, genetically diverse plants, from the region in which we live.  So as a seed collector and wildflower enthusiast, I start the year with the most modest of intentions.  A few plants that interest me to supplement and fill in gaps in a few spaces here and there.  A few more because I want to supplement the genetic diversity from local populations.  

So what starts off as a small, well intended plan to "scale back" quickly led to this list of plants I am germinating in 2022:  

Wild Seeds from the spectacular Kittery Seapoint bluff I am germinating this year include Heath Aster (symphyotrichum ericoides) and New York aster (symphyotrichum novi belgii) (above).  Both are spectacular in late September and through October.  These are particularly important along the coast because of the migration of monarchs which blow along the coast with the high pressure systems that come down from the north and aid in the migration.  These are also important species for queen bumblebees that need a late season nectar source to hibernate in small holes for the winter until they emerge in late spring.  

From the nearby Cutt's Island in the Rachel Carson Wildlife Sanctuary I collected seeds from a very interesting plant, Scott's Lovage (ligusticum scoticum) which is a member of the carrot family.  It is a beautiful plant with lovely flowers in the summer that grows in the arctic and is at the southern limit of its range in New England.  The flowers, stems and leaves are spectacular, each in their own season.  I believe it is a perennial, not a biennial, like many members of the carrot family.  Based on one report I found on iNaturalist, it can flower in late June in Maine, so it should have value as an early summer pollinator in our area, like its cousin in the carrot family, Golden Alexanders.  

In Strafford, NH, near the headwaters of the Big River, I collected Downey Goldenrod, Solidago puberula, Little  Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium, and Path Rush, Juncus tenuis.  I am excited to add these plants to the gardens, especially the Little Bluestem because of its deep roots and the fact that it is host plant for many species of skippers.  The goldenrod I will add to a goldenrod & aster section of a garden I am expanding this year.  

The path rush I will add along a driveway that has only a narrow space along the house where I do not want plants to lean out into the driveway where I park.  I hope to establish a nice population that will provide a texture while holding the soil.  If it does well, I will eventually add it to other areas and gardens where I want a natural  dry meadow appearance of wildflowers and grasses.  Path rush is a plant that can be used as a lawn alternative, so it will be interesting to see how it does in my yard.  

Other plants that I am germinating from wild seed include New England Blazing Star, Symphyotrichum novae-angliae, from the Kennebunk Plains.  I purchased this plant from Walter Kittredge's Oak Haven Sanctuary in North Reading Massachusetts and really enjoyed its wild-yet-striking look.  Walter's nursery is well worth the visit to see his fantastic seeds grown from seed but also just to talk to someone who loves and understands native plants in a way that is highly contagious.  

In a hike up Mount Kearsarge this fall, I also collected seeds of Hobblebush, Viburnum lantanoides, a beautiful shrub for a wet shady area that has spectacular white flowers in May and the most wonderfully complex and textured leaves in the fall.  No two leaves are the same and many you could just stare at for an hour and still notice new lines and colors.  However, Viburnums are tricky to germinate.  They take two cold winter seasons and perhaps also the digestive process of a migratory bird in order to germinate successfully.  I have not succeeded yet, but when I do I will be most happy to have this cool, graceful shrub in my shade garden.  

Right next to the Hobblebush on Mount Kearsarge I collected seeds from these lovely Whorled Asters, Oclemena acuminata.  I'm very much hoping to copy nature's design in this photo and plant these beneath the share around a large maple.   I might not be able to produce the same combination of moist, shaded woodlands that I found here, but I'm hopeful to use this aster's understated appearance to create a sense of connection between the great trees in my yard and the gardens around them.  It won't be easy with the rush of the roads and traffic nearby, but that's no reason not to try.  

Other plants I hope to germinate from wild-collected seeds this year are the Grass-leaved Goldenrod, Euthamia  graminifolia, which I understand can spread but the bumblebees and carpenter bees adore it.  I collected seeds from this plant along the bicycle path to Pease in Portsmouth NH.  Can you count the number of bees in this photo?  I think there were something like a total of 28, both common eastern bumblebees and carpenter bees.  It was a large number and it might not have been this photo, but it is hard not to want something that is clearly an important resource for these bees.  

Right next to this, I found from 25 foot high Nannyberry shrubs, Viburnum lentago, that are taller than any I have seen before.  You can see them from the Spaulding Turnpike driving to the traffic circle, but I do not suggest you do that.  Too dangerous!  At Fox Point in Newington, I also collected some seeds from the many Flax-leaved Stiff Asters, Ionactis linariifolia, that seem to do so well in the sandy soils by the edges of the woods in that area.  

From the Wild Seed Project, I ordered plants mostly to fill in gaps left open due poor germination in prior years or losses due to voles, or, to get plants that interested me but for which I did not have time to locate and collect seeds in the wild.  These include:  zizea aurea / golden alexanders which were completely wiped out by voles last winter; blue iris / iris versicolor and closed gentian / gentiana clausa which germinated poorly for me last year.  I am also germinating Blue-eyed grass / Sisyrinchium montanum to mix in a low to the ground meadow I am making of flax leaved asters, antennaria, and lowbush blueberries.  I'm not sure how these plants will work together but I am interested to see the results.    

So that's *all* of the plants I am germinating from seed this year.   Maybe next year I will cut back.  Maybe...  Definitely maybe.