If you’ve shopped for woodland plants, you might already know that they tend to be more expensive than grasses and prairie plants. If you have sticker shock, this post will help you understand why we charge more for these plants.
First, some woodland plants have seeds with double dormancy. If you are familiar with the need to stratify native plant seeds in order for them to grow, that is a single dormancy. Purple coneflower takes one 60 day period of cold, moist stratification. This stratification is usually accomplished by putting the seeds in moist potting soil and keeping it in the refrigerator for the number of days needed. Once that time is up, they can be transferred to a seed tray and usually germinate in 2-7 days.
A plant like Bellwort on the other hand, takes a cold, moist period, followed by a warm, moist period, another cold-moist period. Seeds will germinate once they are subjected to warmth again. We have to account for this extra time and handling.
Second, quite a few woodland wildflowers do sprout the first year, but they either grow only underground (hypogeal germination), like Blue Cohosh, or just send up a strip of green material the first year. Trillium also sprout underground the first year, send up a strap leaf the second year and are only large enough to sell after three or four growing seasons (you’ll see the iconic three leaves in the fourth year.) During this time, we are moving plants inside for the summer and back outside for the winter, and keeping them watered.
As a side note we do propagate some of our seeds in garden plots and dig up the plants to transfer to pots as soon as they are big enough.
Finally, the ferns. There is quite a learning curve involved with growing ferns from spores. Lots of careful prep of materials and containers is required, with special attention to keeping things as sterile as possible. Fern growing containers can become contaminated by fungus, algae, and liverworts and sometimes a whole batch is lost. Patience is required as they complete their life cycle (more on this later). Some ferns are also quite sloooowww growing.
If we sell plants in our 2.5 inch pots, they are less expensive, but it may also be two or more seasons before they flower and/or are mature!
Like a regular nursery, we have to buy pots, potting soil and sometimes seeds. But beyond that, we are caring for these plants a lot longer. There is always loss in the nursery setting if conditions aren’t quite right and it’s a lot more painful on plants that have been nursed along for years!