I’m calling this winter seeding, but it should be with an asterisk, as there is no snow, and it was almost 50 degrees this afternoon. I will assume there is more winter coming, rather than this being the start of an early spring, but I am no longer confident in my knowledge of the seasons. Ten days ago there was a stretch of three or four days where the temperature did not get above zero, and now this, a sixty degree swing, a whiplash event. This will not be a profound or speculative post, rather a short documentation of my progress on seeding the twenty acres that were burned last fall, a task that I am not good at. I have been proclaiming that this is a spectacular opportunity to enhance the diversity and the depth of the wildflower component of this piece, originally seeded in November, 2022. I haven’t changed my mind, and here are some thoughts and some examples.

To begin, here’s an area I flagged to use as an experiment. First, I wanted an area of primarily black ground, with very little unburned thatch. These were the sorts of areas I was targeting for the seeds that I spread. Winds are fickle, and a well planned and executed toss of a handful of seed planned for a 10 mph wind becomes an unfortunate mistake if the gust becomes 15 mph, and perhaps changes direction by 20 or 30 degrees. The seed flies past the bare area into an area of heavy ground cover. Thus go the fortunes of war, so to speak. I was able, however, to get about 80% of the seed that I spread today, perhaps 10# of a mix I will enumerate below, into appropriately bare areas. Second, the area shown above has a significant area of Canada thistles which have colonized the existing seeding and are integral to the experiment, not unusual on this field. Third, I seeded the area, perhaps 200 square feet, with more seed than I was tossing out on the rest of the 20 acres. There is anecdotal evidence, including on other parts of my restoration, that Canada thistles are suppressed by a heavy forb component in a way that negates the need for chemical thistle control. Conversely, there is also plenty of evidence that little else will grow in a dense thistle patch. I have had that experience as well. In other words, it is a sort of race to see who dominates the site first, whether forb establishment can occur before the thistle patch gets too thick. Thus, I will be documenting both competitors in this area through periodic photos. I will try to give one of the competitors, the thistle, a handicap by periodic mowing of the area as the thistles come into bud. As the new wildflower seedlings will be very small this year, they should not be hindered by mowing. This will not be a rigorous research project, with multiple treatments and replications, meaning it will be just one more anecdote to throw on the pile. However, it will still be very interesting, and I will certainly use the results to inform future attempts to augment seed populations and diversity.

There is one additional conundrum here, an unknown I have not found in the fragmentary accounts I have read: Which forbs? Many species of plants, Canada thistles certainly included, fight for their space chemically. Allelopathic effects are very common, and can occur without much effect showing above ground, but many species of plants slowly undermine competitors under the ground making their targets susceptible to drought or disease. Again, this is not a replicated or well controlled research project. Still, I think it worthwhile to list the species of the mix that I spread.

1. Rough gayfeather (Liatris aspera)
2. Meadow gayfeather (Liatris ligustylis)
3. Leadplant (Amorpha canescens)
4. False sunflower (Heliopsis helianthoides)
5. Canada milkvetch (Astragalus canadensis)
6. Prairie onion (Allium stellatum)
7. Heart-leaf golden alexander (Zizia aptera)
8. Maximillian sunflower (Helianthus maximillianii)
9. Prairie dropseed (Sporobolus heterolepis)
10. Silky aster (Symphyotrichum sericeum)
11. New England aster (S. novae-angliae)

Obviously there are too many species there to sort out individual effects, but that’s what was spread on the rest of the mesic areas that I seeded today, so that’s what I used. If I am able to follow through with my experiment I will give an update in a few months. There are a couple other experiments that I hope to accomplish this year, and I will describe them if they occur. The day after I spread the seed the weather turned, with a little freezing drizzle, two inches of snow and 40 mph wind. In other words, the seeds were moistened, and stratification has begun. Today is still windy and cold, but there will once more be good conditions for spreading seed in a couple days, and I will try to make it out to fling some more possibilities onto the receptive ground. I have some big bluestem (Andropogon scoparius) to blend with white camas (Zigedenus elegans), more meadow blazing star, perhaps some more silky aster (Symphyotricum sericeum), a bit of an unknown mesic adapted aster that my wife gathered and likely some whorled milkweed (Asclepias verticillata) I gathered.

All this is in addition to the materials spread during a stretch of nice weather in December and early January. At that time I spread 50-60# of a wildflower blend gathered by my friend Levi Waddell with perhaps 40-50 different species, some of which duplicate the other seed that I have listed here (there were a lot of stems and bracts in the mix, so about 25-30# of seed). Ben spread several pounds of porcupine grass in mesic areas, I dropped several hundred bulblets of wild garlic (Allium canadense), and tried to individually toss a few hundred compassplant (Silphium laciniatum) seeds in appropriate spots at the same time. I spread a couple pounds of needle and thread (Heterostipa comata) on the xeric areas. I threw some bits of bottle gentian (Gentiana andrewsii) on a low area. And I have been giving the xeric third of the field bits of this and that: some prairie turnip (Pediomelum esculentum), Alumroot (Heuchera richardsonii), groundplum milkvetch (Astragalus crassicarpus), slender milkvetch (A. flexuosus), standing milkvetch (A. adsurgens), pasqueflower (Anemone patens), prairie smoke (Geum triflorum) and will add a little textile onion (Allium textile), prairie larkspur (Delphinium carolinianum) and green milkweed (Asclepias viridiflora) seeds to the gravelly soils if I get back out this weekend. I know that I am leaving out several species, but will add them to this post as I remember them. Then, in April I will decide if I put a little more seed out there, or view the canvas that has been “Jackson Pollocked” with seed with the satisfaction of a completed task, and begin work on the next seeding project. I already have the young cohort at the Native Plants Initiative lab at South Dakota State University tasked with starting about 400 plugs of various species, and they overwintered about 150 seedlings of downy gentian (Gentiana puberulenta) and pincushion cactus (Coryphantha vivipara) that I will try to plant in a few weeks.

Oh, but that is an exciting and enticing thought: Spring, glorious spring! As I age I get greedier for the yearly emergence of life to occur. Though I may last a while yet, I feel keenly that I am always on the knife’s edge. There are so many ways that I could become unable to enjoy the freedom of wandering in the prairies. The next season is getting close, though. Preparations for the party are underway, the invitations have been sent out, and in four or five weeks there will be pasqueflowers to celebrate.