🌱 Starting Native Plants from Seed Indoors: A Beginner's Guide 🌱

Ready to bring nature home and grow your own native plants? This beginner-friendly guide walks you through everything you need to know to successfully start native plants from seed indoors! Whether you're looking to save money, support pollinators, or add beauty to your garden, this step-by-step tutorial has you covered.

What You'll Learn:
✔️ Why growing from seed is rewarding
✔️ How to prepare and stratify native seeds
✔️ When to start planting seeds and when to transplant
✔️ Setting up your indoor grow space with the right tools
✔️ Planting, watering, and caring for seedlings
✔️ Troubleshooting common issues like leggy seedlings or mold
✔️ Transplanting seedlings outdoors for a thriving native garden

From choosing seeds to enjoying the rewards of mature plants, this video will inspire and empower you to grow beautiful, eco-friendly native plants.

🌼 Featured plants include:

Rose Milkweed (Asclepias incarnata)
Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpurea)
Blue Wild Indigo (Baptisia australis)
Blue Vervain (Verbena hastata)
Sweet Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia subtomentosa)
Black-eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta)
Anise Hyssop (Agastache foeniculum)
Jacob’s Ladder (Polemonium reptans)

🌟 Pro Tip: Protect pollinators by choosing untreated, organic seeds!

🥶 Find your last frost date with this interactive map:

🌍 Start your native gardening journey today and help support local ecosystems while creating a stunning, low-maintenance garden.

📌 Don't forget to like, comment, and subscribe for more native plant tips and tutorials!

#NativePlants #SeedStarting #IndoorGardening #Pollinators #EcoFriendlyGardening #GrowFromSeed #BeginnerGardeners

[devans-oo]

I think this is the best overview of the entire process I've seen. Thanks for an awesome video.

[googleyeyes]

I love how involved you are in helping us understand and choose the right plants for our conditions!

I just realized that I have not seen much (if anything) on personal conditions such as:

*Pets and other animals
(urine and running)
*Children
(running and physical interactions with nature like grass plucking)
*Gardener age/ ADA and terrain of garden
(my one neighbor in his late 60s has moss on his sloped walkway and has slipped on it; aging parent with walker, soon wheelchair-- ease of movement through garden, especially if no room in budget for walkways.)
*Renter-friendly
(what can be grown in pots and how to over-winter-- like with leaves, as well as what is worth leaving in the soil like wild ginger, for example.)

Big fan of natives. Anemic wallet here inspiring to be incredibly creative. Just want to add that I already have approval from the landlord, so I am really excited.

Just thought I would put this out there and see if anyone else has similar concerns.

Thank you

[tamar]

Thank you so much for your inspiration. I’m on leave from surgery. Now I can feed my passion!!

[googleyeyes]

"Cottle-Eden" is how we pronounce cotyledon in my area. 😂😂 I laugh because English is such a varied language. One word can be pronounced and spelled in like 5 different ways. Tomato, tomahto. Love your videos. LOVE your open love of the cutness of bugs and baby plants. Ain't nothing wrong with that (says the third pea from the same pod 😄).

[kimberlythompson]

Wow, that is an amazing instructional video; truly wonderful. Thank you so much for taking the time and energy to put it together. It does seem a bit overwhelming to do all that, but wow, so helpful to actually see how it's all done and the supplies needed.

[magdalen]

I'm growing Anenome and they are a germination code of F....lol cold moist stratification 60-90 days, then warm moist stratification 60-90 days, then another 60-90 days cold moist stratification again....just gonna do a cold moist stratification and then do an outdoor sewing at the end of summer.

[leepickler]

Great video as always! Can't wait to get started.

[abydosianchulac]

Great video! A couple thoughts I had:

–The point made of the cost savings of starting many plants from seed is so true, but it's still worthwhile if you don't want a large quantity of plants at the end. Growing many from seed will allow for any failed seedlings dying along the way, and will let you select the best and most vigorous growers for your garden. As for the rest, either they can be gifted away or given to the rabbits and chipmunks.
–Bottom watering replaces top watering, absolutely, but one circumstance you may want to do both is if you've accidentally let your plugs dry out some. Many of these mixes turn hydrophobic when fully dry and won't suck water upwards like they do when moist. If you end up with dry plugs or pots, do a little top watering first to let gravity force water into the substrate, then that moistened channel through the plug will let water percolate up from the bottom watering and to the side, taking care of the rest of it.

[barbararussell]

I am SO Glad I found you gals. Thank you ! :)

[ElahehDaisy]

🥳🥳🥳 right on time, I bought seeds for next year and needed to know what to do next.

[aubreyackermann]

Can we get something on native plants that are more resistant to Japanese beetles? They love my native roses, my brambles, my apples, etc- I'm always nervous planting because they might mow it all down and kill it

[foxruneec]

Fabulous set up Lexi. I am a "retired" organic farmer from KY and when I moved to WI a couple years ago I did notice that I had to really watch my seedlings for lack of humidity. So I do use a hygrometer and keep distilled water in a spray bottle when humidity is low. Thanks for your stratification schedule for up here.

[foxruneec]

I think the one in the front is definitely a carpenter bee because like you said you can see the shiny black thorax. Also the carpenter bee's wings are a bit darker - a bumble bee's wings are more translucent.

[magdalen]

I get lbs of seeds and have had no issues germinating because the pure large amount.

[ELEibel]

Any advice on growing natives indoors for a FALL planting- or if we missed the window do we have to wait till next year?

[joannesmith]

This was the most comprehensive presentation I have ever seen on this topic. I noticed that you did not use any heat mats. Also, how could I incorporate soil blocking in this process if you even suggest this for natives. I especially loved the seed starting chart. I am a visible learner. So I printed it out and wrote all the seeds I am interested in starting by their Germ Code/Days above the start date. So much easier to figure out if you want to plan. I am in Zone 8 so I have started my C60 seeds. Thank you for sharing. I will be visiting this website often.

[ljpuggy]

Have you tried winter sowing with any native seeds? I have a ton of gallon jugs I’d like to put to use. And thank you so much for your videos, so informative.

[kaseyfickel]

Apologies if this is a silly question, but how frequently should the plants be watered after transplanting them into the bigger pots? I’m a very paranoid water-er. Always too much or not enough, lol.

[magdalen]

The only issue I had is I grew wild lupin and blazing Star and then they didn't grow past a certain size. I ended up planting them outside and most died because even three months into growing them they were still tiny from pot.

[lauriebruno]

Do you start your seeds inside because you’re in a colder area? I live in Franklin Tn. And I did the milk jug method successfully.