Nine Woodland Seed Mixes (with headers, but blurry)

The lists of species below represent the current planting mixes of summer and fall-blooming species of herbaceous plants as used by the Somme Woods stewards in our work to restore the brush-degraded herb layer of bur and white oak woodlands (here including "open woodlands"  or "closed savannas'. 

Expanded abbreviations for the column headings from left to right are as follows: 

MCS = Open Woodland (Mesic Closed Savanna)

MW = Mesic Woodland

WMCS = Wet-mesic Open Woodland

WMW = Wet-mesic Woodland

WW = Wet Woodland

MCST Mesic Open Woodland Turf Mix

MWT = Mesic Woodland Turf Mix

MCSLO = Mesic Open Woodland Low-pro Mix

MWLO = Mesic Woodland Low-pro Mix

Detailed comments about the differences among these mixes follow the list. A less blurry version (but without repeated headers) is here. 

Comments

1. There's no hard-line boundary between savanna and woodland. "Closed Savanna" could be seen as "the part of the woodland with less dense tree-canopy shade." For our savanna plantings we also distinguish between "Open Savanna" and "Mid Savanna" - the species lists for which include most species often called "prairie species." 

2. This seeding list treats only mesic, wet-mesic, and wet species because at Somme we have no dry-mesic or dry woodlands to restore.

3. The "Turf" mixes are for the seeds of species that typically don't do well in newer restoration areas, for example where dense brush was recently cut. Instead, they establish more consistently in areas where a diverse turf of species is already established. Some of the species limited to these mixes might occasionally succeed in bare soil areas, but we don't want to risk the small amounts of seed we are able to gather. 

4. The "Low-pro" mixes are the most select. These 43 species seem to thrive best in areas where the turf of conservative species is sufficiently well established and competitive that there tends to be a "low profile" - that is, the plants not only diverse and dense but also shorter. 

Links

Click here for more posts on seeds, seed studies, and oak woodland restoration generally.  

Acknowledgements 

These planting lists started with the North Branch Restoration Project lists (assembled decades ago by John and Jane Balaban and others. The above version, tailored to the work at Somme, was developed by Eriko Kojima, Christos Economou, and others.