Our Butterflyweed & + Liatris Friends Seed mix allows the opportunity to establish a micro-meadow or landscape bed sized mix with an abundance of Butterfly Milkweed, Dense Blazing Star, and Button Blazing Star; complemented by companion plants that will co-exist well with them long term. Because Butterflyweed and Liatris species market price is so expensive, supplying high quantity of these species makes for a more costly seed mix, but the results are well worth it. The 4 native grasses used in this mix help create a short height environment for this specific set of wildflowers to persist in.

‍This mix stays below 3 feet in height and is best planted in areas that receive at least 6 hours of direct sunlight per day or more. This group of species is adapted to moderate moisture soils, and lower moisture soils of silty, loamy, clayey, or sandy soil types. These species mature fairly quick, and will put on a great display of flowers in the second year and beyond. The 500 sq. ft. portion makes for a more affordable size. The 1,000 square foot portion can be split down into smaller landscape bed sized portions or kept as a micro-meadow of 1,000 square feet. The 2,000 square foot portion gives a bulk discount, and allows for a double sized micro-meadow. With using 20 (+2 optional) species for this seed mix, these micro-meadows and/or landscape beds will appear more uniform and organized than our higher diversity mixes.

Native Applicability

This Native Seed Mix is designed to be widely applicable throughout the Midwest, Southeast, Mid-Atlantic, and Northeastern U.S. as described in the states listed below. Purple Coneflower is the exception, not being native to some of the states on this list. Applicable States/regions: Ohio, Kentucky, Indiana, Illinois, Southern 3/4th’s of Michigan, Southern half of Wisconsin, Missouri, Kentucky, West Virginia, Virginia, Pennsylvania, Non-Costal North Carolina, Non-Costal South Carolina, Northern half of Georgia, Northern half of Alabama, Tennessee, Eastern Iowa, and Arkansas. To make this mix native to the northeast excluding maine (outside of purple coneflower) choose no on option to add hoary vervain and purple prairie clover. The Hoary Vervain + Purple Prairie clover option is primarily for the midwest and mid-south to choose if they’d like to.

20 Species + 2 Optional: Butterfly Milkweed - Asclepias tuberosa, Downy Wood Mint - Blephilia cillata, Foxglove Beardtongue - Penstemon digitalis, Black Eyed Susan - Rudbeckia hirta, Purple Coneflower Echinecea Purpurea, Canada Milk Vetch - Astragalus canadensis, , Spotted Bee Balm - Monarda Punctata, Heal All Prunella vulgars var. lanceolata, Slender Mountain Mint - Pycnanthemum tenuifolium, Marsh Blazing Star - Liatris spictata, Smooth Blue Aster - Symphyotrichum laeve, Early Goldenrod - Solidago Juncea, Rough Blazing Star Liatris aspera, Dwarf Goldenrod - Solidago nemoralis, Aromatic Aster - Symphyotrichum oblongifolium, Little bluestem - Schizachyrium scoparium Nimblewill Muhlenbergia schreberi, Purple Top Tridens Flavus, Rough Dropseed Sporobolus asper

Midwest/Southeast Optional Species: Purple Prairie Clover Dalea purpurea (Optional), Hoary Vervain Verbena stricta (Optional).

Cost Effectiveness

Native Prairie/Meadow Seedings cost about 2 to 13 cents per square foot where as using potted native plants to cover the same area costs $2.00 to $10.00 per square foot depending on how densely the potted plants are installed and mulch use. For example; a 1,000 Square foot pollinator garden would require at least 750 potted native wildflowers/grasses to cover the plot effectively. Potted Plants can cost $2 to $10 per plant, and at a cost of $5.00 per plant, 750 wildflowers/grasses would cost $3,750 + installation costs and mulching costs. If that 1,000 square feet were instead seeded with one of our mixes it would cost $125 - $150, and you could do the installation yourself simply: using our instruction manual. The cost effectiveness ratio increases even higher the larger of plot you are seeding vs. planting with plugs or potted plants - for 1/8th acre or larger the cost per square foot is only 2 to 3 cents where as the smaller 1,000 and 2,000 square foot portions are around 12 to 13 cents per square foot compared to the $3.75 per square foot cost of potted plants. Maintenance is easier and weed invasion resistance is much better with seeding projects vs. potted plant landscapes due to the density of native seedings repelling and blocking out weed competition as the plot matures.

This particular seed mix is 10 to 26 cents per square foot depending on how large of a mix you order.

500 Square feet - $130

1,000 square feet - $155

2,000 square feet - $200