Our Shade Adapted Native Seed Mix is perfect for planting under and around yard trees, wood edges, shady sides of buildings and homes, and other partially shaded conditions. It can adapt to more sunny conditions if need be, but is designed for at least part day’s shade. It ranges from 2 feet tall to 6 feet tall, with the Woodland Joe Pye Weed (Eutrochium purpureum) being the only species in the mix that gets over 4 feet tall. This group of species is adapted to lower moisture, moderate moisture, and higher moisture soils of silty, loamy, clayey, or sandy soil types. If you seed it in drier conditions, you can give this mix 2 inches of water per 2 weeks via sprinkler specifically during summer droughts to maximize its floral intensity. This mix effectively covers your purchased square footage at 70 seeds per square foot.

This mix is 90% to 100% native to the Midwest and much of the Southeast part of our seed applicability Map. Northeast Considerations: Foxglove Beardtounge is native Pennsylvania but not much further north. Purple Coneflower isn’t native to the northeast. While these species aren’t native to the northeast, they also aren’t damaging and are still beneficial to varying extents. The rest of the native plants in this mix are native to the northeast.

The Seed Mix Map is the last picture in this sequence.

21 Species: Golden Alexanders Zizia aurea, Foxglove Beardtongue Penstemon digitalis, Virginia Spiderwort Tradescantia virginiana, Red Columbine Aquilegia canadensis, Early Sunflower Heliopsis helianthoides, Wild Bergamot Monarda Fistulosa, Purple Coneflower Echinecea Purpurea, Downy Wood Mint Blephilia hirsuta, Spikenard - Aralia racemosa, Brown Eyed Susan Rudbeckia triloba, Tall American Bellflower Campanula americana, Sweet Joe Pye Eutrochium purpureum, Yellow Giant Hyssop Agastache nepetoides, Great Blue Lobelia Lobelia siphilitica, Late Figwort - Scrophularia marilandica, Solidago caesia Blue Stem Goldenrod, Solidago rugosa Wrinkled leaf Goldenrod, Calico Aster Aster lateriflorus, Arrowleaf Aster aster sagittifolius, Bottle brush rye Elymus hystrix, Virginia Wild Rye Elymus virginicus

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.

1,000 square feet - $120

2,000 square feet - $160

1/8th acre - $195

1/4th acre - $295

1/2th acre - $480

1 acre - $865