I’ve converted the bulk of the lawn on my lot back to prairie/woodland opening, and I feel like everyone is much more chill. I now have wasps, yellowjackets, and of course bees amicably buzzing around, in addition to the WASPs telling me how much they like it.
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I went to the nursery this weekend and loaded up on natives for my front yard. I’d tried to do sowing of native meadow seed last fall but it didn’t take. I think squirrels and birds ate most of it before spring. So now we’re doing intentional planting.
But it was a grass lawn before and now it’s not so progress at least.
You might find these helpful! Prairie Moon and a handful of other nurseries have great guidance documents on plants, how to design with them, and their needs. My understanding from this guidance is that butterfly weed (Asclepias tuberosa) requires 30 days of cold stratification prior to germination. You can mimic this by putting the seeds in a bag of sand in your fridge for 30 days prior to planting, or what works for me is to wait until the first snowfall and spread the seeds. This way they get stratification, they’re less prone to birds picking them off, and in the spring they have good contact with the soil and they get a good source of water.
Depending on your area though, it is often easier to start with plant “plugs” and supplement with seeds.
https://www.prairiemoon.com/catalogs/2023.Prairie-Moon-Nursery-Cultural.Guide.pdf
https://www.prairiemoon.com/PDF/Prairie-Moon-Nursery.Seed-Starting-Basics.pdf
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I really recommend reading ‘The Tallgrass Prairie Restoration Handbook’. It’s all super readable, interesting, actionable ideas and theory for growing prairie from degraded fields.
