When is the best time to plant wildflowers and prairie grass
We regularly get calls in July asking to buy seed, and while it’s always nice to sell your product, I always cringe and recommend they wait until the Fall. Why? Because poorly time plantings often amount to nothing more than compost for the soil. No grass, no flowers, no prairie…
So when should you plant? Great question.
There are two good times of year to plant your native prairie or wildflowers—fall and spring.
Fall
- In the fall, it’s important to plant late enough. If you plant too early, let’s say in September, then you run the risk of things germinating and the frost coming to kill off the tiny roots that just started to emerge. For a hard rule of thumb, the Natural Resource Conservation Service recommends planting after November 15. But then the seed will get frozen…. Exactly! You want the seed to go into immediate dormancy, so it starts growing the following spring. That is why fall seeding is also called dormant seeding.
- Ideally, you will plant right before a snow. This allows the seed to stay protected under the seed all winter. Then when the snow melts, the water will bring the seed to the perfect depth in the ground, which is only about an 1/8 of an inch.
Spring
- Spring seeding should happen in May or June. Honestly, anytime within that two month range works well. We recommend planting right before a rain. Similar to the melting snow, the rain will help bring the seed to the correct depth. As alluded earlier, July is a bit too late to plant. It can be done, but your quality of seeding will go down from an A to a B-.
If you had to choose between spring and fall, we recommend fall. Spring works perfectly, but since you haven’t frozen your seeds, many of them will need to go through a winter season in order to germinate, so they will not start growing for a full year. This isn’t necessarily an issue, but it means you have to maintain your ground for another year.
While there are other variables in play, fall or spring will definitely be your best planting time for natives in Iowa.
If you’re looking for seed, check out our Prairie Shop. We only ship out during fall and spring to ensure you get the best quality seed and the best planting date.
Best of luck!
