Easy natives to plant - no cold stratification or pretreatment needed
If you want to get a jump on the growing season, now is a good time to start seeds indoors. If you haven't cold stratified your seeds, which is a term for exposing seeds to colder temperatures to simulate the natural winter they would experience outdoors (often using a refrigerator and damp paper towel or coffee filters), don't worry. There are natives that don't require that cold period that we have categorized as "Easy" for their germination.
Some of these "easy natives" have been recommended for cold stratification by others, but we've found they tend to come up just fine without it. In our own experiments we have also found that the seeds recommended for 30 days of cold stratification (Cold(30 in our germination key), like the Joe Pyes and Milkweeds, often tend to germinate without it as well. The caveat here is that you will almost certainly get better germination rates with at least some cold period for those plants.
When planting perennial natives, it is better to sow more densely in your pots. That is to say, you would not want to plant one or a few seeds in each pot. Native seeds have a tremendous amount of variability in the timing of their germination even within the same species. Having a number of plants germinate leads to healthy competition among them and there tends to be a natural thinning out. If the pots are wide enough and you're not using small cells to grow, you also have the option of splitting these pots into halves or quarters when it comes time to transplant, increasing the number you have to plug into the ground.
In the last post, I talked about using a compost-based potting mix if possible because the widely available peat-based potting mixes use a resource that is much better left in the ground. There are commercially available compost-based mixes that you can find on the web. We have been experimenting with OMRI-listed compost, coconut coir, and rice hulls that we mix ourselves. Like gardening itself, seed starting is an experimental process, and the goal is to make that process less carbon-intensive over time if possible.
Once you have your potting mix in the pots or cells, sprinkle the seeds on the surface. Most native seeds can be left there on the surface, especially very small seeds like Great Blue Lobelia's. If you cover them, do so only lightly and no more than the width of the seed. Larger seeds like those of Purple Coneflower or Sunflower can benefit from being covered a bit since soil moisture is retained better below the surface.
Soil moisture is the main thing to keep in mind for seed starting. You want to keep the soil consistently moist for germination (but not sodden!), for one to four weeks depending on the species, and then continue watering them while they are indoors. You'll want to watch out for overwatering when plants are young, which is usually the primary culprit for early plant death due to the inability of roots to access oxygen and increases in fungal and bacterial infections. Watering in the morning or early afternoon is also best to prevent fungal infections like damping off disease.
In calling plants "easy" for germination, we're only pointing to that very early stage, the very beginning of plant life. The rest of their life indoors isn't as easy as something like a Snake plant. You can't ignore them for days after they germinate. You have to keep an eye on their soil moisture every day. But the end result of transplanting healthy plants into the garden in a specific site of your choosing and watching them mature is well worth it!
Well, back to planting - happy sowing!
-Andrew