Wildflower planting advice needed

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

I bought a bunch of wildflower seeds and plan to cover the island. My plan is to float my tiller over to till the whole island then broadcast the seeds. I'm reading that fall was the best time to plant wildflower seeds. Have any of you done this? Are any of them going to grow planting them in the spring, and when do I need to get this done? We are still going to have very wet weather for at least a couple months.

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[ovrszd]

Ideally,,,, the seed should sprout in the Fall. That gives it a jump start for Spring. But,,,,, that's man's interpretation.

Wild plants seed in late Fall/early Winter. Freeze/thaw plants the seeds. Sprouting starts in the Spring. With that theory, you could go to the island and broadcast your seeds now. Let the rains plant them.

You are a little late for that. You probably already have obvious growth starting?

Lastly, don't get carried away with tillage. Mother Nature doesn't till. A seed should not be planted at a depth greater than one and half times it's diameter. A culti-packer is your friend when seeding small grains. It simply presses the seed into the soil.

When seeding a lawn for example, you will see a LOT of seed on the ground after you are done. If not, you buried it too deep. And your growth will be the lucky seeds that escaped your burial plan.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

I'm tilling mostly to kill as much grass out there as possible. I'll throw them out and walk on them I guess. I don't have anything to press them into the ground with.

 

[ovrszd]

I'm tilling mostly to kill as much grass out there as possible. I'll throw them out and walk on them I guess. I don't have anything to press them into the ground with.

Well, Mother Nature doesn't have a culti-packer either.

I have scattered seed with a hand crank seeder, then use a steel yard rake and scratch the soil a little to help plant the seed.

What species of Wildflowers are you planting? I've got 70 acres of CRP that's Pollinator mix. The mix had 15 different species. Over the years that has thinned to half a dozen varieties.

 

[LittleBittyBigJohn]

Honestly I don't know what all I have. I bought 2 lbs of pollinator mix from a local bee supply. I was dragged to dollar tree by the wife and I got a dozen big packs of assorted pollinator mix, humming bird mix, and random other packs. We also got several different types of sunflowers and I'm going to buy a big bag of black oil sunflower seeds. I've heard that they will grow. I'm also going to try to plant them to make a "hedge" around my bee yard.

 

[Cougsfan]

Just do what you can, spread them out and see what happens. If you do everything just right you will get a very high success rate. The more "less perfect" you do it, the success rate goes down. You don't have to have a high success rate to get a lot of beautiful flowers, and if they re-seed themselves or are perennials, you will get more every year.

 

[jaxs]

I bought a bunch of wildflower seeds and plan to cover the island. My plan is to float my tiller over to till the whole island then broadcast the seeds. I'm reading that fall was the best time to plant wildflower seeds. Have any of you done this? Are any of them going to grow planting them in the spring, and when do I need to get this done? We are still going to have very wet weather for at least a couple months.

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Same as all things that come with instructions pay no attention to them and do as interweb buds say. Whoever said "you can't fool mother nature" never met TBNers with high post counts.

 

[ovrszd]

I would never knowingly plant sunflower seeds of any variety. They are very prolific. Agronomists say sunflower seeds can lay in the soil 30 yrs and still sprout when they are moved to the "right" spot. For giant sunflowers I have experienced that. Not pretty.

 

[Oaktree]

I have never had any luck planting wildflowers. Not to say I don't have a field full of them, but what I have just got there on their own. I would love to have a patch of lupine...it's so beautiful when it blossoms in mid-June, but nothing I do works. I think I have one plant that I transplanted from the roadside maybe 6 years ago that comes back every year but that's it.
OTOH I have plenty of Indian paintbrushes, buttercups, milkweed, dandelions and a lot of others I don't know what are.

 

[oosik]

I planted a half acre to wild grasses and wildflowers. I chewed up the topsoil with a home made drag. Planted half of the land in the fall - half the following spring. The fall planting resulted in better sprouting. After two years you could not tell the difference. All the grasses and most of the flowers were perennials. The butterflies and humming birds really enjoyed the flowers.