AUSTIN (KXAN) — Fall isn’t typically the season when Texans are thinking about bluebonnets, but those who want to grow their own should be starting that process now.
The Texas state flower blooms in the springtime, popping up seemingly overnight along roadways or in yards across the state. But the process of achieving those beautiful blue blossoms doesn’t happen overnight.
As an annual plant, the bluebonnet runs its lifecycle in about a year’s time, with the seed germination period taking place in the fall months, according to the Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT), which has its own guide on planting bluebonnets, with specific details about different regions throughout the state.
TxDOT has its own wildflower program, a state-level initiative to cultivate more than 5,000 native wildflower species along state roadways.
Sam Glinsky, a vegetation specialist with TxDOT, said that now is the optimal time for bluebonnet planting.
When to plant bluebonnet seeds
Glinsky said a general timeframe for sowing bluebonnet seeds would be anytime between early September and Thanksgiving.
“A lot of people don’t realize that in Texas, many of our wildflowers do need to get planted in the fall,” Glinsky said. “You know, most of the rest of the country, many parts of the world, you can go and plant whatever type of flowers are native to that region in the spring. But in Texas, many of our species do need to get planted in the fall, and that’s because they need overwintering. They need those hard freezes to come on that help break open that seed coat, weather that seed coat down, and signal to that seed that, ‘hey, it’s time to start growing.'”
How to prep and plant bluebonnet seeds
Glinksy said TxDOT’s approach to planting bluebonnets is “sticking as close to Mother Nature’s Way as possible.”
“We don’t need to do anything special to our seeds. Once we have them on hand, we can just go spread them out by hand, we call this broadcast seeding,” Glinsky said. “For larger areas, people might use a seeder that kind of spins and spreads that seed all over the place.”
A really important part of sowing the seeds is making sure they actually get to the ground and have soil contact, Glinsky said. So, make sure there’s not a whole lot of vegetation where the seeds are going, or make sure to do a low mow once the grasses have gone dormant before spreading the seeds.
Following in TxDOT’s footsteps of the Mother Nature approach, however, might mean that it could take one or two years of a bluebonnet’s full lifecycle for the flowers to start really thriving after they’re planted.
“Once that seed hits the ground, in most cases, it’s actually not a one-year process. We need a few years of weathering to kind of get that scarification on those seeds, which is just the natural weathering and erosion of that seed coat, to the point where that seed is able to germinate, especially for some of these species, like bluebonnets, that have a really thick seed coat.”
If you want those blooms as soon as next spring, don’t fret yet! Glinsky said if that’s the case, artificial scarification methods will need to be done on the seeds before they’re planted.
Scarification
While TxDOT doesn’t recommend artificial scarification, as it can potentially damage the seeds, there are some options for folks who want to speed up the germination process.
The Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center, however, does recommend artificial scarification for plants with tougher seed coats, like bluebonnets, because the seeds have adapted to the environment over time, and scarification can mimic nature’s processes to increase germination.
Glinsky described some scarification methods for those who do choose to go the artificial route. The wildflower center also lists some methods on its website. Those include:
- Gently scratching the seed coat
- Put seeds in a damp paper towel and leave them in the fridge or freezer for a short period of time before planting
- Lacerating the seed with a sharp knife
- Nicking the seed with nail clippers
- Roughing up the seed coating with sandpaper
- Freezing overnight, then adding seed to boiling water (cooled just a bit) in order to cause cracks
How many seeds to use
Glinsky said for a dense wildflower meadow, TxDOT plants about 40 pounds of seeds per acre.
The TxDOT website has a map that includes more specific data on how many seeds to use per square foot, depending on what area of Texas the bluebonnets are being planted in.
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