Few things are more frustrating than broadcasting wildflower seed in an open area and then having birds swoop in and eat your garden before it has a chance to germinate. You can outsmart the birds and other wildlife, however, by making seed pellets that effectively "hide" the seeds, making it difficult for birds to find and make off with them:
Materials:
a large plastic or metal bucket
clay or adobe soil
composted manure
wildflower seeds
a large screen
Steps:
1. Mix a couple of handfuls of manure with a large amount of clay or adobe soil in a bucket. (The manure will act as a fertilizer to help get your wildflower seeds going.) Add water and mix the contents with your hands until they form a gummy mass about the consistency of modeling clay.
2. Add the wildflower seeds, making sure they are evenly dispersed in the soil mixture and that you've added enough seeds to cover the desired area of your yard or garden (figure A).
3. Take large clumps of the mixture and grate them over a large screen-- small pieces of the soil-and-seed mixture will fall through (figure B).
4. Dry the seed pellets in the sun, then scatter them over the landscape just as you would wildflower seed.
Guests Jeffrey Trent
Landscape Designer, Natural Order Inc.
PO Box 1767
Tucson, AZ 85702
Phone: 520-792-9274
Fax: 520-791-9236
Email:
deergrass@aol.com
Also in this Episode
![PHOTO](javascript:popup("http://img.hgtv.com/HGTV/2003/02/25/grw207_1a_e.jpg",350,450))
![PHOTO](javascript:popup("http://img.hgtv.com/HGTV/2003/02/25/grw207_1b_e.jpg",350,450))
