Plant diversity is the foundation of a healthy ecosystem, and you can help things along by spreading plant seeds. Don’t just wait for seeds to spread across your land – give them a helping hand and find suitable spots for them.
What’s the Point?
The average tree seed won’t travel more than 100m from its parent, and seeds from smaller plants often travel much less far. In the wild, animals would pick up seeds on their feet, fur etc and spread them far afield. They might even trample them into the ground or poop them out, giving them a healthy dose of fertiliser.
But we can speed this process up by harvesting seed from less common plants and trees, and spreading it around our land – whether that’s a garden, a smallholding or a farm. Just make sure to ID the species first to make sure it’s native and not invasive!
How to Do It
Make sure to only collect half the seed from any plant, and don’t do it on a nature reserve or protected site. Collect dry, ripe seeds and fruit and make a note of the habitat where you found the plant… Is it a meadow or a glade, a swamp or a dry hillside, a shady nook or an exposed patch of bare ground?
Now find similar habitat elsewhere and spread the seed around. Do this at a few different sites to maximise your chances, and disturb the ground a bit, using a spade or fork, if you can’t see the soil. If you have easy access to water, then give the seeds a sprinkle to help them along.
Best Case Scenario
This technique is best for boosting diversity in existing tree plantations, by adding in seed from trees in the neighbourhood. You can boost the diversity of species and genetics by harvesting local tree, climber and shrub seeds and spreading them throughout your planted woodland.
It also works well in ponds – particularly clay ponds – where introducing foreign plants comes with the risk of invasive hangers on, which might include the dreaded duckweed!
But any site can benefit from this approach – we’ve used it every year to not only boost plant diversity, but also spread interesting plants from one corner of our rewilding project to other places, securing their long term survival.
