This reminds me of an instagram account that bikes around public spaces with a local wildflower mix shaker planting flowers.
You will not find me in that outfit, ever, LOL
Nor on a skateboard.
I know it's not the right place, but since it's brought up—does this method actually plant flowers even if they're just sitting on dried up soil? Is it helpful in anyway?
Seed naturally blows off of flowers, and settles on the ground, it will not generally root/bloom that way, but what happens is that people/animals walk over it and push it into the ground, it rains heavily and sinks into the ground, leaves and other duff fall to the ground in autumn and decompose and birds/animals eat the seed, and ahem, redeposit it with fertilizer.
So yes, it does work, providing you're putting the right seeds, in the right condition.
However, it is less effective than sowing seed or planting plants, and tends to generate patchier results.
Some seed needs to be deeper in soil to germinate.
In general scattering seed works best on tilled or loose bare soils.
It is least effective in compacted soils and/or where it would have to compete with grass or other established, aggressive ground cover.
***
Scattered seed, does carry advantages though, it's faster, easier, and cheaper vs either sowing seed into the ground, or buying plugs/plants and transplanting them.
The former is also more sensitive to time of year.
And is it feasible and legal in Toronto to do this with our own local wildflower mix?
In a laneway? I'm unaware of any legal restrictions.
In a Park? No. Not legal, precluded under Park by-law (Toronto Nature Stewards would be allowed)
****
Collecting your own seed would be a pain in the.........and you have to know what you're doing.
The 'wildflower' mixes you can buy in stores generally contain many non-natives, they are not specific for the Toronto region.
You can get proper native mixes, pre-made or custom from some plant nurseries. They can ship them to you via Canada Post etc.
These folks do really good seed mixes and will do custom to where you want to to use them:
At St. Williams Nursery & Ecology Centre, we’re a dedicated conservation nursery and ecological restoration provider in Ontario. Our team of restoration scientists, practitioners, nursery growers, and technical experts support and supply source-identified native plants for a wide variety of...
stwilliamsnursery.com
~ $150 per kg.
The price will vary if you get custom.
You can (or used to ) be able to get smaller sizes, but you'd have to inquire about that.
For smaller packets.... ~$5 these guys are good:
https://www.nativeplants.ca/020~Shop/030~Seed_Packets/
For a sense of how far the seed goes, you're looking at 1kg covers about 200m2 or 2,000ft2.
