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Seeding a meadow over prairie perennials?

Posted by miller88 z5 OH (My Page) on
Mon, Apr 13, 09 at 10:48

Last year I had great success starting a meadow in part of a preexisting lawn. I used an annual and perennial mix. The annuals were amazing and the perennials established well. In the winter I mowed down the plants which created a lot of plant matter. Now I have some questions. How well do annuals tend to resow themselves? The floor of the meadow was thick with seeds in the late fall. Seed companies recommend reseeding each year. If I should reseed the annuals, should I consider raking up the plant litter for better seed to soil contact? This will pull up some newly germinated plants, and could wait till early May before I resow. Should I roll the seeds down as I did with the first sowing? Will it be effective with perennials already 2 inches high? I could stomp them in by foot, but 10,000 square feet is a full day of work and would be pretty random. Thanks.


Follow-Up Postings:

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RE: Seeding a meadow over prairie perennials?

I don't think you need to stomp the seeds down.

If you mowed the plants down in winter, then the natural action of snow, freeze, thaw and rain should have worked the seed down to the soil. (That's how mother nature does it.)

How well annuals resow is highly variable, depending upon weather conditions from when the seeds were formed to when the seeds were germinating...

I probably would do a wait and observe...mainly because I am cheap and lazy. If I didn't get as much resowing this year as I would have liked, then I would resow next year.

If there were some critical event that I wanted to have a grand display for this year, I would resow this year...


 
 

 

 


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