Frequently Asked Questions - Just click on the questions below to see the original question and our answer.

How many pounds of your seed mix per acre should I use to cover my site?

How can I get my wild petunia seeds to germinate at a higher percentage?

I am planning on a fall seeding of your Savanna site seed mix. When should I start applying Round Up®?

What are strawflowers and where can I find them?

What books do you recommend for helping me determine how to plant my wet site or the planning of rainwater gardens?

What do you mean when you refer to a flower as a "compound flower"?

I love your web site! I live in Southern California and am interested in locating something my mother says are seeds to grow "straw flowers". I had never seen such a thing, but told my daughter that I would look on the web and see what I can find out. Have you ever heard of this type of flower? Can I get it through you or is there someplace else I need to look?
     Thanks for your help. Any information you can share will be helpful. Again, thanks for a great web site! Keep up your good work! Sites like yours make surfing the web a lot of fun!
Denise

Denise
   Strawflowers are native to Australia, so they do not fall under the native prairie plants and seeds of our region. We do have a little information you might appr4eciate, though.
Strawflowers were used by the Egyptians to decorate the statues of their gods. Greeks used strawflowers mixed with honey to soothe burns. In the Victorian era,strawflowers were used to make fireplace screens. They were also used instead of houseplants to decorate their living rooms.
   Start seed indoors in March. Plant strawflowers outdoors after all danger of frost is past.
   Plant in full sun. Space plants 12 inches apart.
   Harvest the flowers with six to twelve inches of stem for drying before their yellow centers are visible. Take off all the leaves. Wrap the stems with a rubber band. Hang the flowers upside down in a dry, airy, shaded place. They will take two to three weeks to dry. Strawflowers will grow three feet tall. Flowers come in red, yellow, orange, pink, white or purple colors.

What books do you recommend for helping me determine how to plant my wet site?

My property has a couple very wet spots because we live at the base of a hill in very hilly Dubuque, Iowa. I would like to solve the problem using well-placed rainwater gardens. I have heard and read a little about them mostly through Wisconsin Public Radio and on a couple websites. Do you know of any books, magazine articles, extension publications that would help me in choosing a spot for and planning my rainwater garden?
Thanks, Cindy

Cindy
    There are a couple of books we carry in our bookstore that are most helpful regarding the placement and plans for your rainwater gardens. One of them is "Gardening With Native Wild Flowers" by Jones and Foote. This book has a very good section on gardening in bog and wetland situations as well as superb information on preparation and propagation. Pair that one up with Whitner's "Stonescaping", and you will have the ultimate resource combo at your fingertips. "Stonescaping" contains an extensive section on building rainwater gardens that will take advantage of the rainfall in your area and use it best to make your garden just the way you want it.
    Please see Judy Glattstein's "Waterscaping" for another great, all-inclusive reference for water gardening.

How can I get my wild petunia seeds to germinate at a higher percentage?

My name is Andy and recently I have been playing around with propagating Wild Petunias from seed. We are getting terrible germination. Do you know of any way to break the dormancy of this variety? Now germination is running about 6%.

Andy,
You picked a tough one to "play around with". Ruelia humilis requires a 70 day period of moist, cold stratification for proper germination.
    Mix your seeds with equal amounts of damp (moist, but not so wet as to be able to squeeze water out of it with your hand) sand, vermiculite or other sterile media. For small quantities of seed, you can purchase silica sand at most building supply centers; for large amounts of seed, use a coarse grade vermiculite. Place the mixture in a sealed plastic bag (or bags) and store it in a refrigerator at 33 - 38 degrees. It takes 70 days of cold storage before the dormancy is broken on these seeds


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When to apply Round Up® for a fall seeding

   I live on an acreage in southwest Bremer County, and I am planning to seed a small portion of my 3 1/2 acre meadow on a bluff overlooking the Shell Rock River.
    I already have a number of oaks on it: some are still seedlings, but a few are 20 feet tall. My friend recommended that I contact you. According to what I have read on your website, your Savanna mixture looks just about right, and I expect to begin with a pound that will cover about 2000 square feet. How soon would you recommend that I apply Round Up to this area if I am intending to do a fall seeding?
   Should I consider applying Round Up, then mowing it, and then apply it again before seeding in October.
Thanks
Ed A.

Ed
We suggest applying your herbicide right away in the spring, as soon as the growing season starts. Continue the applications throughout the summer, whenever things start to green up again. Once the weeds have been killed, you should be able to broadcast the seed over the area without tilling. Just make sure you wait until the ground temperature reaches 50 degrees (generally around the first part of November) to ensure a proper dormant seeding.

How many pounds of seed per acre should I use to cover my site?

Hello,
    My name is Solomon M., a student at Upper Iowa in Fayette. This past summer I persuaded the school into planting a short grass prairie on campus. We would like to purchase your dry site Short Grass Prairie Mix, so I need to know your recommendations on pounds per acre, and ask your advice on a Dormant Planting for mid October.
   Thanks for your time, looking forward to hearing back from you.
Solomon M.

Solomon
    Thanks for contacting us about your project at Upper Iowa. We have our recommendations for seeding rates per acre on the seed mixes page, but here it is for your referral. These are the proportions we recommend; a thick, luxuriant prairie takes time and effort, so be patient, the rewards are worth the effort!

    For the dormant seeding, just make sure the ground temperature is 50 degrees before you broadcast the seed on your site. This usually happens around the first of November.

What do you mean when you refer to a flower as a "compound flower"?

The Composite or Daisy Family (Compositae or Asteraceae) is the largest family of flowering plants on the planet. It is also one of the most recent families on the evolutionary timeline. When we look at a daisy, we generally see it aas a single flower. In truth, the "flower" is a actually a flower head composed of dozens or even hundreds of individual flowers. To confuse the issue even more, there are two distinct types of flowers on each flower head, ray flowers and disk flowers.

What we generally percieve as the petals of the flower are the ray flowers. The ray flowers are most often arranged around the center disk of disk flowers. Not all members of this family have ray flowers. Pollen and nectar are produced only by the disk flowers.

Evolution teaches us that thistles, daisies, sunflowers, asters, and all the triumphant family of composites were once very different flowers from what we see today. Through ages of natural selection, they now populate every land on earth. Doubtless the aster's remote ancestors were simple green leaves around the vital organs, and depended upon the wind to spread their pollen. Then some rudimentary flower changed its outer row of stamens into petals, which gradually took on color to attract insects and insure a more economical method of transfer. As flowers and insects developed side by side, and there came to be a better and better understanding between them of each other's requirements, mutual adaptation followed. The flower that offered the best attraction, as the composites do by their showy rays; evolved into producing nectar only in the disk flowers at the center of the flower head. Stamens developed in the disk flowers resulting in easy pollination by any insect that happened to walk across them in search of nectar. With that easy process of pollination fine-tuned through evolution, it's little wonder that our June fields are white with daisies and the autumn landscape is glorified with golden-rod and asters!