It takes longer to wake up a spiderwort seed than almost anybody else in the prairie…
Aching to be cold
The seeds of most native Midwestern wildflowers require a cold, damp nap before they will sprout. If the seeds germinated as soon as they formed, the baby plants wouldn’t make it through the winter. So nature lets a seed keep track of when it’s been through a winter and when it’s time to sprout. Furthermore, a seed doesn’t start keeping time while it’s still dry. It has to feel in its bones like this is winter. It has to be both cold and damp.
Some seeds need a month of wet cold. After that, the warmth of spring will induce sprouting. Other seeds require two months of cold. For some reason, spiderwort seeds need 120 days of cold and wet before they believe it's really spring.
Planning ahead
That’s right — four months! They need to start doing their time in the cold and the wet right about the end of December.
General gardening wisdom about spiderworts is that they're best planted outdoors in fall. So today, New Year’s Eve, my spiderwort seeds will go into a small seedling flat. They'll spend the winter outdoors in a growing box. Next spring, when they sprout, I’ll divide them into separate pots until they’re big enough to plant outdoors.
Screen tops over the tops of the boxes protect the contents from those cute little chipmunks who love to dig up anything I plant outdoors.
I collected my first seeds from Ohio Spiderworts growing wild in the ditch beside an Iowa gravel road. I planted them the day I started my prairie wildflower garden.
Now they’re spreading spontaneously by self seeding. However, I still also start a few in the growing box, as insurance and to share.
Names
Scientific name: Tradescantia ohiensis
Common name: Ohio Spiderwort
Plant family: Spiderwort family (Commelinaceae).
It is native to the US, primarily in the Midwestern states and the East.
Wow, the seeds of spiderwort look like baby barnacles. The deer munch down our spiderwort. They hadn't touched them for years but finally found them tasty.