2024 Native Seed Mix Instructional Manual
Written from first hand experience and EXPERIMENTATION by Solomon Doe - Owner of Indigenous Landscapes.
Seed Mixes Purchased between February 2024 and December 2024 should be installed between October 2024 and November 2024 most ideally. December 2024 is ok for southern states, south of Lexington Kentucky, south of St. Louis, Missouri and South of the state of Virginia.
This Instruction Manual is for you, or a hired landscaper to execute.
Site Selection
Sun Exposure, Soil Type, and Moisture Level
Our 2024 native seed mixes are all adapted to Saturated Soil, Seasonally Wet Soil, Moderate Moisture Soil, and Drier Soils because of the high diversity of wildflowers you’re getting in these seed mixes. So there’s no need to consider soil moisture with these seed mixes. The sun exposure needs to be at least 3 hours of direct sunlight per day. Also these seed mixes do not geminate as well under the deep shade of a tree. Being native meadow/prairie plants, they can also handle much more than 4 hours of sunlight - up to a full day’s worth of sun exposure. Soil type also does not matter with these seed mixes as the high diversity will compensate and adapt to any soil type within their regions - rocky, clay, loam, sand, silt.
Site Preperation Options
Site Preparation for a 2024 October, November, or December Seed Mix Installation
By now, it’s too late to prepare the land and to prepare the seed mix for a 2024 spring installation, so seed mixes purchased in 2024 should be prepared to be used fall of 2024. This isn’t a bad thing as now you have the opportunity to use all of spring/summer/fall of 2024 to prepare the site organically or via herbicide to set your native meadow/prairie up for a clean slate.
Herbicide Site Preperation Option
If you’re purchasing a seed mix between February 2024 and December 2024, and you plan on using herbicide to prepare the site; follow these instructions. Use 5 ounces of glyphosate concentrate per gallon of water if you’re using a 41% concentrate and use 4 ounces of glyphosate per gallon of water if you’re using a 50% concentrate. It’s best to apply it in the spring or early summer time when there’s no chance of rain for at least 2 days and air temperatures are above 65 degrees. You’ll apply it to the site once in the spring, once in the summer, and once in the early fall. In between applications the seed bank will germinate thousands of weeds. Simply keep the site mowed periodically in between the herbicide applications and that will keep those weeds from going to seed before the next herbicide application. If you have nutsedge in your area, it will not be affected by the glyphosate applications. Use Sedge Hammer or another sedge selective herbicide to defeat the nutsedge. If this step is intimating, consider hiring a landscaper to do these herbicide applications.
When used by the label directions, Glyphosate based herbicides are the safest herbicide for human safety and safety to wildlife on the market. As an Environmental Restoration Professional who’s also licensed to apply herbicides commercially and agriculturally; there are pretty toxic herbicides out there, like Dicamba, 2 4-D, and even Triclopyr is fairly toxic and persistent. But glyphosate is the least toxic of the bunch and it's half-life of 30 to 60 days has to be considered more environmentally friendly than the effects of repeated tilling opening up the soil to mass erosion or solarization plastic use. For a full explanation of why we recommend Glyphosate based herbicide you can read an excerpt from our Native Meadowscaping book on that topic here.
How to Use Glyphosate Safely
It’s pretty simple to use glyphosate based herbicides safely. Here’s a few guidelines from a licensed professional: 1. Wear disposable latex gloves 2. Wash hands and forearms after using the herbicide. 3. Use a blue dye to avoid over spraying; blue pond dye is cheapest. 4. Don’t touch your face or clothes with the latex gloves after putting them on. 5. Spray on calm-winded days. 6. Spray on days of over 65 degrees or for winter weeds over 55 degrees that have no rain forecasted within 36 hours. 7. Use Glyphosate formulated for wetland or riverside usage within 20 feet of water ways. 8. Mix a 41% Glyphosate concentrate at just 4 ounces per gallon for lawn and clover treatment to prepare for a native meadow, and 5 ounces per gallon for noxious weed treatment. 9. Keep foot traffic and pet traffic off of the sprayed area for at least 8 hours after spraying or until the application has visibly dried onto the vegetation. 10. Wear Pants while using herbicide and wash the pants directly after herbicide applications. 11. Hire a professional landscaper to treat the area if the job feels too large or too far out of your comfort zone.
Organic Site PREPARATION Options
Mulching, Tilling, Cardboard Matting, and Solarization
Mulching thickly with 6 to 10 inches of mulch can kill many plants effectively. The problem is the expense and labor of applying it to larger scale projects and the fact that native meadows will require +95% of the mulch material to be removed from the site before the seed mix can be applied. For these reasons this is only applicable to very small areas.
Cardboard matting can also kill plants effectively to prepare a native meadow. The two limitations are the cardboard must be removed before the seeding. The limitations of this method are typically the lack of enough cardboard to effectively cover a tenth acre or more of land to create a decent sized native meadow. For that reason it’s typically only applicable to small areas.
Tilling can be used as long as the land is not sloped, the soil is tillable (not too rocky), and there are no noxious weeds on the site. Plants like Canadian thistle, nutsedge, and Johnson grass will only multiple from tilling due to their rhizomes. This method requires tilling 4 to 6 or more times during the growing season. The downsides of this method are tilling will repeatedly bring up weed seeds from the seed bank by the thousands and tilling will certainly cause topsoil erosion. For these reasons we don’t recommend tilling, even for small areas. Sod cutters can be used in deep soils where losing a half of inch of soil isn’t an issue, but on larger scales losing half of an inch of soil over a 1/10th acre or more amounts to a lot of lost soil and disposal for no necessary reason given the alternatives.
Solarization is the most effective method out of these options when it comes to effectively clearing the site of plants, but comes with the environmental cost of using hundreds or thousands of square feet of plastic that will not fully biodegrade for over a 100 years. Solarization plastic is also non-recyclable and usually not able to be reused more than twice. This is one reason we recommend a glyphosate based herbicide which if applied properly, will have a half-life of just 30 days. You’ll also be able to apply a seed mix just 14 days after applying a glyphosate herbicide application. Remember that the negative environmental impacts of glyphosate are from agricultural scale and agricultural frequency use, not from the environmental restoration scale or environmental restoration frequency use. This is the same for human health hazards which can be avoided by simply wearing the proper personal protection equipment described in the safety guidelines we provided on this page. People may suffer health conditions from glyphosate use if it’s applied improperly (improper PPE and method), frequently (weekly), for a long period of time (years). This is the same reality for many professionals working with chemicals across various industries; you need to follow safety guidelines provided in the label of whatever chemical you are working with.
If you go with solarization, in most regions it will need at least 4 months of higher temperatures to work well, especially on flatter ground. On Eastern and Northern faced slopes it may not work well at all, but leave it on for the entire spring, summer fall before a fall seeding.
Seed Mix Installation Instruction
Do not install your seed mix in the fall of 2024 if you haven’t properly prepared your site already according to the instructions written above. These instructions are intended to be used for 2024 fall if your site is already prepared.
INstallation INstruction
Applying the Seed Mix
To seed the seed mix the seed must be mixed with enough coarse dry sand to spread throughout your whole plot. The amount of dry sand you’ll need is partly determined by your method of spreading. If you’re using a bucket spreader, walk-behind spreader, or tow-behind spreader; you’ll need a bit less sand than if you were spreading by hand as hand spreading is naturally less even than mechanical spreading.
Amounts of sand needed for spreading the seed mix evenly.
Pollinator Garden Sized Portion - 1/2th of a 5 gallon bucket of dry sand
1/8th acre - 2 5-gallon buckets of dry sand
1/4th acre - 4 5-gallon buckets of dry sand
1/2th acre - 8 5-gallon buckets of dry sand
After you’ve determined however much coarse sand you’ll need to spread the seed, you’ll need to dry out the sand so that it can go through your spreader (or hand) effectively. Wet sand will clump up and not spread much at all through a spreader or by hand. After mixing the seed mix into the entire amount of required sand, you can wheel it around in a wheel barrow and throw it by hand if you’re not using a spreader. Just try to go over every area evenly. To dry the sand, we typically lay our sand out at a depth of 1/4th inch across our garage floor and run an industrial fan over it to dry out the sand. We’ll then scoop the dry sand into a pile of its own to clear the floor before spreading more wet/moist sand out and repeating the drying process. On a +70 degree day you can dry sand on a concrete or blacktop driveway within about 1 to 2 hours, and then as it dries we store it in storage bins outdoors. Our sand is ordered by the ton from a landscape supply company, but you won’t need a ton! Try to find a landscape supply store that allows you to purchase 5 gallon buckets worth of sand.
Once your sand is dried and you’re ready to mix the native seed mix into the sand:
mix your entire seed mix into 1/2th buck of sand thoroughly. You can use a second empty bucket to pour the first bucket back and forth into to ease the mixing process.
Lay out your dry sand thinly over a 10 x 10 tarp. Shake the bucket of sand/seed mix you created in step 1. over the tarp of dried sand.
Use a shovel and utilize the tarp to mix the bucket of sand/seed mix created in step 1, thoroughly into the dried sand on the tarp.
Store the entire tarp’s worth of sand/seed mix into storage bins until you’re ready to spread the seed. You want this finished sand/seed mix to stay dry until you’re ready to seed the meadow in late October or November.
How to Seed the Meadow
With seeding, our philosophy is to go conservative with spreading the seed mix on the first time through your plot, using less than you will actually need. To achieve this, use about 60% to 75% of your seed mix in an attempt of covering 100% of the plot with. Then use what’s left of your seed mix in an attempt to go over your plot a second time. This will ensure that the seed is spread evenly compared to doing it all in one pass. This also ensures that you don’t over-seed an area causing you to not be able to cover the entire plot with seed. Whether by Bucket, or Bucket Spreader, Push Spreader or Tow Behind Spreader, the most important thing to keep in mind is covering the plot evenly and fully. This is why we mix dry sand in with the seed mix, to increase the amount of total medium spread so as to give us enough to spread it evenly throughout the plot. For Fall seedings, pressing the seed into the soil isn’t necessary. What’s more important is, in the spring time, making sure the soil is covered with 10% of leaves or less. Too many tree leaves on the plot in the spring will inhibit germination.
Why Do We Strongly Recommend Fall Seedings?
With fall seedings the primary advantage is the seed will naturally stratify as it does in the wild. Stratification is the breaking of a seed’s dormancy (prompting germination) through the seed experiencing a cool-moist period or warm-moist period or both for months at a time. This naturally happens through seed falling to the ground throughout the midsummer into the fall and stratifying on the surface of the soil throughout the fall and winter. If there’s an open niche (no plants already occupying the space) then they will readily germinate in the spring. Another advantage to fall seedings is that they are not rain dependent for germination like spring seedings are.
1st year (NExt Year) Maintenance and Germination
First Year Maintenance
You may be excited to see a sea of germination in the spring of your native seed mix, but don’t set your expectations too high. Most native meadow species won’t germinate until the soil temperature reaches about 65 degrees. On northern and eastern faced slopes germination will be delayed compared to southern and western faced slopes. Flatter ground germinates first typically as flat ground receives sun throughout the day without the slope orientation being a factor. Oftentimes, the first things germinating aren’t native, but as long as they are non-native annuals or biennials, the native seed mix will outcompete them over time. You should wait until fall before even judging how well the plot is germinating. Wait until mid-summer before taking action on noxious weeds such as Johnson grass, Canadian Thistle, or Nutsedge. Some of our most successful native meadow installations looked mostly like 95% crabgrass the first year, which is severely disappointing if you’re too quick to judge. Then the following year many more native perennials started showing their faces and by the third year the plot was +95% native in appearance and in actuality with the plants that we intentionally sowed in the seed mix. This follows the Sleep, Creep, Leap saying about native plant establishment pace. The first year they sleep, the second year they creep, and the third year they leap in growth.
Many books will recommend mowing at a height of 8” or higher. The problem with that is most people don’t have access to the type of equipment that can mow that high. We’ve found that this isn’t necessary fortunately, what’s more important is knowing when to intervene, and when to let it be. Intervention is necessary when there’s noxious weeds establishing themselves though even then, it’s often not necessary to intervene until year two in the mid-spring as you can identify them clearly from the co-arising native plants. Sometimes in wetter areas species such as Curly Dock and Nutsedge grow so vigorously that it’s best to treat them in year one. For nutsedge, use a sedge selective herbicide that only kills sedges to leave the other native plants safe. With rhizomatous plants like Nutsedge, Canadian Goldenrod, Johnson Grass, and Canadian thistle you’ll find it extremely difficult to eliminate them by organic methods or with solarization because their rhizomes will allow them to re-sprout or sprout up outside of the solarization plastic. The most effective way to treat them is a sedge selective herbicide for nutsedge and a 5 ounce of glyphosate/gallon of water application for noxious weeds which will kill the underground rhizomes. Most non-native annuals and biennials can be left alone but if you’re plot grows thick with unintended annuals weeds in the first year; hire a landscaper to use gas sheers to mow the plot down to 4 inches in height which will allow the native perennials underneath proper sunlight to establish. This process may need to be repeated up to 3 more times during the growing season, about everytime the plot gets over 3 feet tall with thick growth from unintended plants. If you need help doing mid-summer plant identification in the first year of your native meadow to determine if you have non-native weeds or noxious weeds; facebook native plant groups local to your region are excellent resources to post pictures and receive identification through. Though remember many native plant seedlings will be small and/or waiting to germinate later in the year so do not give up on your project in year 1.
Recommended Mowing
After the first growing season is over, you can choose to mow all or two thirds of the native meadow down in late fall/early winter if you’re working with a high visibility area. If you’re working with a backyard meadow or land that’s out of view; leave the native meadow standing throughout the winter into late winter and mow one third each year, leaving two thirds standing each year. The more stems you can allow to stand throughout the winter, the more overwintering insects will have places to bore into the standing stems. Unfortunately in high visibility areas, it’s best to mow as soon as possible and as much as possible to prevent complaints and ordinance officers from paying you a winter visit. We have a client who mow’s their native meadow 100% every year except for the thicket species, and they have a wide assortment of native bees visiting each summer. When looking at the mowed up vegetation left behind on the ground by the brush mower, it appears it’s so broadly cut that it doesn’t pulverise the stems into mulch which likely preserves many of the small solitary bees and other insects that use the stems to bore into.
Altering the Meadow in the Future
Disturbance Mowing
Native Meadows change rapidly within the first 5 years, though stability increases some each year along the way. You may find that when you reach year 4 or 5, short lived species with low permanency such as Black Eye Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Cardinal Flower, Great Blue Lobelia, and Evening Primrose are almost absent. This is because the meadow starts out as a fully open niche created by the site preparation process (Herbicide, Solarization, etc). As the meadow matures niches close and are filled mostly by longer lived native perennial plants. There are exceptions to this rule on some sites. Native annuals such as Showy Tickseed and Partridge Pea can persist and even increase over time if the conditions are ideal for them. If you want to maintain open niches for plants of shorter lifespans like lobelia species; you’ll have to create a disturbance in the native meadow after these plants disappear. You can do this by mowing down a section of the native meadow down once every two weeks in the spring and throughout the summer into the early fall. Mow as high as the mower can raise to. The short lived plants still exist through the surface seed bank they created while they were flowering. Mowing will stimulate these seeds to germinate as the native perennials are weakened by the mowing. Stop the disturbance mowing in early fall. The following year, the areas you have mowed will explode with the native annuals, biennials, and short lived plants responding to the disturbance in the perennial plant community you created. If you had a history or non-native annuals and biennials such as Sweet Clover, Chicory, Red Clover, and Queen Anne’s Lace then this mowing disturbance will likely invite some of those non-native short-lived species back into the native meadow; so consider whether it’s worth the risk. You can start by just disturbance-mowing a small area as a test plot to make sure it’s not going to stimulate too many non-native plants to establish back into the native meadow.
Patch Editing
To patch-edit use your favored site-preparation method (solarization, herbicide, etc.), and plant strategically placed plugs + a diverse seed mix of plants that are missing from your native meadow or that will increase the aesthetic longevity of your meadow throughout the season. This is most easily done by preparing the site (killing off the vegetation) in the mid summer and again in the early fall before fall seeded seed mix. Plugs can be added in these killed off areas in late winter. In general, if you and your neighbors are pleased with how your native meadow looks throughout the year then your meadow is likely well balanced flora-wise. In this latter case, native pollinators and insects will also rejoice in its diversity.