The first time I tried growing native plants was around the year 2005. I was a child, and I had bought some native flower seeds in Canada and smuggled them into the US. I don’t remember all the species I bought, but I’m pretty sure Aquilegia formosa and Primula pauciflora (at that time called Dodecatheon pulchellum) were amongst the seeds I picked out at a British Columbia botanic garden gift store. Upon my return to the US, I looked up how to grow them, and the only information I could find was “stratification needed.” I couldn’t find any information on what type of stratification was needed (i.e., warm or cold), or how long to stratify them for. Needless to say, my experiment was a failure: none of the seeds germinated.

As an adult, I returned to propagating native plants, and this time I had a secret weapon: Prairie Moon Nursery. Not only could I buy seeds with confidence that they were viable (or so I thought), Prairie Moon also furnished me with a seemingly-comprehensive list of germination codes. There are 15 different codes, so I won’t bore you with them here, but here’s a taste: “B” indicates boiling water treatment, “C(x)” indicates cold moist stratification for x-number of days, “G” indicates that a seed germinates best in cool soil, and “H” indicates that a seed requires scarification. I’m the kind of guy who uses spreadsheets to organize my garden (and track movies that I’ve watched), so this highly structured system of codes really resonated with me. I thought that if I followed Prairie Moon’s germination code to a tee, I’d never again fail to germinate a seed. But I was wrong.

Prairie Moon’s catalogue is not the seed germination bible

Prairie Moon is often accurate, but sometimes the information on their website is wrong, or incomplete. For instance, Prairie Moon wants us to believe that sweet cicely (Osmorhiza claytonii) requires only cold stratification to germinate. Wrong! I’ve tried, and it simply doesn’t work. This makes sense; if we consult the true seed germination bible (Carol Baskin and Jerry Baskin’s Seeds, Second Edition), we see that sweet cicely has nondeep complex morphophysiological dormancy, which means that it needs warm stratification, then cold stratification to germinate. Or take passionflower (Passiflora incarnata): Prairie Moon says stratify cold for 60 days. I tried that, and it was a total failure. If we turn again to Baskin & Baskin, we see that it’s a non-dormant seed, but it requires hot temperatures of about 35°C (95°F) to germinate (read my full propagation protocol here).

For me, the most frustrating Prairie Moon code is “M – best planted outdoors in the fall.” Although I recognize this might be good advice, I don’t operate that way. I want to grow my seedlings inside, in my dark and scary basement. Staring at my seedlings brings me joy in the depths of winter, and I refuse to wait around twiddling my thumbs, hoping my seeds outdoors germinate in the spring while watching the squirrels and insects feasting on my seed. But code M offers minimal advice. Do code-M seeds need stratification? Do they need specific temperature regimes at sowing time? If those types of code-M questions keep you up at night, know that you’re not alone, and I’m here for you.

I’m solving the mysteries of Prairie Moon’s code-M seeds, one packet at a time

A few years ago I made it my mission to identify efficacious germination protocols for all of Prairie Moon’s code-M seeds and publish those protocols on the internet. I’m only a few years into this project, but so far I’ve developed (or found) protocols for:

• columbine (Aquilegia canadensis)
• prairie coreopsis (Anacis palmata, formerly Coreopsis palmata)
• white camass (Anticlea elegans, formerly Zigadenus elegans)
• wild hyacinth (Camassia scilloides)
• turtlehead (Chelone glabra)
• pale purple coneflower (Echinacea pallida)
• prairie smoke (Geum triflorum)
• American witch-hazel (Hamamelis virginiana)
• rattlesnake root (Nabalus racemosa, formerly Prenanthes racemosa)
• prairie phlox (Phlox pilosa)
• amethyst shooting star (Primula fassettii)
• pasqueflower (Pulsatilla nuttalliana, formerly Anemone patens)
• prairie blue-eyed grass (Sisyrinchium campestre)
• bird’s foot violet (Viola pedata)
• prairie violet (Viola pedatifida)
• Plus many more non-code-M plants that are difficult to grow from seed, or have incorrect information on Prairie Moon’s website.

I’m posting all my successes, along with how-to guides, so subscribe to follow along. Happy gardening!