By Jeanette Jaskula
It’s seed-harvesting time and we could use your help!
Friends of the Sands is setting aside seed for growing out into plants that we will offer next May at our annual Native Plant Sale. If you have seeds of any of the plants listed below that you might like to donate, please bring them to our Seed Cleaning Workday at the Seed Barn on Thursday, November 10 (10:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.). Can’t make the workday? Reach out to Jeanette Jaskula (jmjaskula@yahoo.com) to chat about dropping them off at Kankakee Sands.
If you are from northwest Indiana or northeast Illinois, we welcome your seed donations from your home landscaping. We want to offer plants that are local and please never collect in the wild from our dedicated natural areas. We also want to avoid cultivars of native plants and stick to our straight native species.
You can use scissors to clip the seed heads into paper bags. There is no need to separate the seed from the seed head. That’s exactly what we’ll be doing on our Nov. 10 seed cleaning work day!
Please reach out if you have any questions. Happy harvesting!
Nodding Wild Onion, Allium cernuum
Swamp Milkweed, Asclepias incarnata
Butterfly Weed, Asclepias tuberosa
New England Aster, Aster novae-angliae
Short’s Aster, Aster shortii
Pasture Thistle, Cirsium discolor
Tall Coreopsis, Coreopsis tripteris
White Prairie Clover, Dalea candida
Purple Prairie Clover, Dalea purpurea
Pale Purple Coneflower, Echinacea pallida
Purple Coneflower, Echinacea purpurea
Tall Boneset, Eupatorium altissimum
Queen of the Prairie, Filipendula rubra
False Sunflower, Heliopsis helianthoides
Round-headed Bush Clover, Lespedeza capitata
Rough Blazing Star, Liatris aspera
Marsh Blazing Star, Liatris spicata
Great Blue Lobelia, Lobelia siphilitica
Monkey Flower, Mimulus ringens
Common Evening Primrose, Oenothera biennis
Wild Quinine, Parthenium integrifolium
Large-flowered Beardgongue, Penstemon grandiflorus
Hairy Beardtongue, Penstemon hirsutus
Obedient Plant, Physostegia virginiana
Mountaint Mint, Pycnanthemum virginianum
Black-eyed Susan, Rudbeckia hirta
Wild Petunia, Ruellia humilis
Wild Senna, Senna hebecarpa
Rosin Weed, Silphium integrifolium
Cup Plant, Sillphium perfoliatum
Priaire Dock, Silphium terebinthinaceum
Stiff goldenrod, Solidago rigida
Showy Goldenrod, Solidago speciosa
Culver’s Root, Veronicastrum virginicum
Blue Vervain, Verbena hastata
Hoary Vervain, Verbena stricta
Common Ironweed, Vernonia fasciculata
Little Bluestem, Schizachyrium scoparium
Big Bluestem, Andropogon gerardii
Indian Grass, Sorghastrum nutans
Prairie Dropseed, Sporobolus heterolepis
Friends of the Sands 