All About our Native Seed Mix Sales
About Our Native Seed Mixes
We’re offering seed mixes for the Midwest, Southeast, and Northeast as defined by the map above. If you’re within one of these depicted regions, the seed mix species will be 95% to 100% native within your state. We designed these seed mixes with the intention to be 100% native to your state, but a few exceptions may occur. If you’re somewhat outside of these depicted regions, some of the species will be native to your area, and some will not.
Our seed mixes contain over 30 species of native wildflowers and native grasses/sedges. Wildflowers make up 95% of the seed mix while the 4 species of grasses/sedges make up about 5% of the seed mix. This design is to ensure wildflower diversity long-term as native grasses and sedges can become over dominant over time when designed at higher seed proportions due to the lack of Bison and/or Elk grazing the grasses and sedges Native Meadows/Prairie keeping them in balance with the wildflowers/forbs. The other reason for the 95% to 5% ratio is higher ratios of grass will eventually become too thick with biomass to mow without a brush mower - which is a costly purchase. These native meadows/prairies will also not require fire to maintain thanks to the low grass ratio that would otherwise suppress its own growth with thatch created by undecayed and unburned grass biomass. To summarize: these seed mix designs allow native meadows/prairies to be established in the urban, suburban, and rural residential context without the need for brush mowers, burning, or eventual grass/sedge dominance that often develops in the absence of elk/bison grazing. Customers are of course able to purchase native grass seed to add to their mixes if they desire; they're quite cheap per ounce and per pound and widely available online.
We provide guidance from our first hand experience with creating native meadows/prairies in urban, suburban, and rural contexts. These directions can be found here.
3 Benefits of Native Meadow/Prairie Seedings Vs. using Potted Plants
Cost Effectiveness: Native Prairie/Meadow Seedings cost about 2 to 3.5 cents per square foot where as using potted native plants to cover the same area costs $2.00 to $8.00 per square depending on how densely they are installed and mulch use.
Lower Maintenance: Native Meadow/Prairie Seedings once established after their second year only require an annual mowing in late winter. These Native Meadows are resistant to invasive plant if mowed once a year during the dormant season. There’s also less cost and labor in weeding and supplies such as mulching that more traditional landscapes require.
Better Aesthetics and Less Flopping: The way Native Meadow/Prairie seedings mature provides a naturally beautiful aesthetic where as traditionally gardened native plant landscapes are more prone to seasonally depressed aesthetic periods and flopping of taller native plants due to lack of tight competition from neighboring native plants. Native Meadow/Prairies out perform potted plant gardens in these regards due to their higher density of plants per square foot and higher diversity of plant species.
Usages
Our native seed mixes can be used to create multiple pollinator gardens or larger native meadows/prairies depending on the size seed mix you purchase: Pollinator Garden Sized, 1/8th acre sized, 1/4th acre sized, and 1/2th acre sized portions are available.
The Pollinator Garden Sized Seed Mixes are excellent lower price option for creating a native plant garden sized 200 to 600 square feet.
The 1/8th acre seed mix is great for starting large pollinator gardens (300 square feet or more) and for starting mini-native meadows up to 5,445 Square feet. When using this mix specifically for pollinator gardens, use only 1/4th of your seed mix per pollinator garden to compensate for the smaller spaces.
The 1/4th acre seed mix is great for starting numerous large pollinator gardens (up to 20 separate 500 square feet pollinator gardens) and for starting native meadows/prairies between 5,500 and 10,890 Square feet. You could also start 3 Native meadows around 3,400 square feet each, or 2 Native Meadows around 5,450 square feet.
The 1/2th acre seed mix is ideal for providing a stronger impact on local pollinators due to the size - covering up to 21,780 square feet. You could divide this up into 3 or 4 smaller native meadows by dividing 21,780 square feet by 3 or 4 to get a square footage measurement for the smaller native meadows/prairies.
