Potting Up Plants

Black-eyed Susan seedlings



I have managed a small hobby nursery that I call Hawthorn Hill for at least a dozen years now. It started when I grew frustrated that many native plants that I wished to add to my landscape were unavailable in the trade. This was especially true for wildflowers and native grasses. Commercial nurseries need to actually sell the plants they grow in order to stay in business and much of what I was most interested in did not have the commercial appeal that would have generated a profit. I didn't have to make money, and truth be told, I don't, but I discovered that if I grew my own wildflowers for my landscape that I had extra plants at the end of the day and that there were always a few esoteric folks like me excited to have some too.
Hawthorn Hill has been a godsend for me with my move to this new home. All the seeds that I had collected last year and the plants I was growing in anticipation of my move has made my landscaping here so much easier. In my writing and public speaking, I always make a point that landscapes should be planned if they are to achieve their maximum potential and this move has been my best-planned one ever. When I was looking for a new place to call home, I especially wanted a yard that had very little landscaping along with reasonably well-drained soils. This was as near-perfect as I could have hoped. The little bit of plantings would not hinder the plans I had and the sea of turf grass was relatively easy to reduce.
Folks that post regularly on various native-plant Facebook sites are often fixated on finding seeds. In a way, I am too, but I've never tried to use them directly to plant my landscape. It's just to difficult to do and even more difficult to manage. With Hawthorn Hill, I grow plants from seed and I transplant the ones I intend to keep when they are large enough. There's no waiting around wondering if the seedlings emerging from my bare soil are wildflowers or invasive non-natives.  There is none of the serendipity that some of my friends enjoy - discovering unplanted things popping up in the planting area and wondering what they are. When I plant something, I know exactly what it is and where it is planted.
Planting from my own seed takes a bit longer than other methods I see people use, but I am never in a rush. I don't need to have everything "done" in the shortest time possible, like planting is a burden.  I celebrate each new planting day as something I've been planning for is finally ready to plant.  It's taken me a great many years sometimes to have found the seed of one of my target plants and to then add it to my landscape. Sometimes, like this year, the seed of something I really want germinates and the seedlings die. There's next year. i don't mind.
I've been working a lot in my nursery these past weeks as the coronavirus has pretty much shut down just about everything else that I might have done. I've added a few new species to my landscape and I'm waiting on a few others. I've got plans for next year's new additions as well.

Coreopsis auriculata awaiting its planting day

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