Rather than plant into plug trays and suffer with non-ideal germination rates, this year I germinated in seed trays before pricking out the seedlings. It worked much better.
I moved half my seedlings into plug trays, and half into Aerogardens with seed starters. The results were impressive. The purple coneflowers were 2-3x bigger in hydro, the big bluestems were more like 3-5x larger.
Now to see if going back into dirt shocks the advantage out of the hydro plants or not.
@mikeswimm The native plant germination and starts process is great for mental health. There are some slow varieties. We started scarlet globe mallow from seed of 2023. One plant made it. It is a very small mallow. The plant was expanding fall 2024. Perhaps propagating from a rhizome will be successful. #nativeplants, #minnesota, #Zone4b.
@Pollinators It really is! Glad you got one at least. I’ll do an update when/if I get some germination. I really hope I do as I have two perfect spots for the plants.