A new guide for aspiring native plant growers (you’ll be ‘panking’ us later)

WWF Canada

Ever heard of a panking pole? No? Well, our new resource Growing and propagating native plants will not only let you know if you need this fruit harvesting tool, it’s an invaluable how-to guide for anyone helping to boost the native plant supply for ecological restoration across Canada.

Title “Growing and propagating native plants, prepared by WWF-Canada” overlaid on a closeup of white flowers being pollinated by a fly, with WWF panda logo at top left.
© Sarah Pietrkiewicz

This bilingual guide is designed to support would-be growers as they joining in this crucial effort. As WWF-Canada ramps up our work with partners and communities to restore ecosystems in priority areas from coast to coast, we will need millions of plants and billions of seeds, all of which have to come from somewhere.

A critical source has been specialized and ecologically minded nursery operators that propagate native plants and seeds en masse by merging techniques from agriculture, horticulture and ecological science. This guide for the rest of us summarizes their underlying theory as well as explaining practical considerations like equipment and the techniques used by veteran growers to help newer growers and green-thumb hobbyists get up to speed.

While native plant growers across Canada have been doing great work for decades, we simply need more of them. This is especially important in high-priority areas like southern Quebec and the Maritimes, where it is difficult to impossible to find the right plants for a particular restoration project because native plant nurseries are so few and far between.

Whether you’re a budding grower starting a native plant nursery or a hobby gardener trying to grow a few more seedlings for your backyard, here’s what you can read about in our new resource:

A person wearing gloves, jacket and hat removing small round fruits from a shrub.
Harvesting fruits by hand © Kristen Miskelly

Establishing a seed orchard: Background and theory on how to turn a few native seeds into many

Harvesting techniques and tools: The diverse ways of ethically and effectively getting seeds off of plants and into a bag. (Here’s where you’ll learn about that amusingly named “panking pole.”)

Cleaning, conditioning and storage of seeds: What to do with seeds after harvesting to keep them fresh

Germination: How to get all those seeds to wake up and grow into plants

Local sources of seeds: Why the source of seeds matters to the outcome of a restoration project

Best practices: Six practices that set a standard for the highest quality of science-based ecological restoration

A long rooms with unfinished walls, concrete floors and four windows containing ten full yard bags and counters covered with metal bowls, paper bags and other articles.
Seed processing and storage space © Kristen Miskelly

Appendices on plant species, terminology, and further reading: Detailed notes, including seed germination instructions, for 58 different native plant species of the mixedwoods plains ecoregion, from Agastache foeniculum to Zizia aurea, plus a glossary of tricky terms and links to further readings and resources

Creating this comprehensive guide wouldn’t have been possible without collaboration from amazing and dedicated native plant growers Benoit Bertrand of Pépinière Rustique, Kristen Miskelly of Satinflower Nurseries, and members of the Ontario Native Plant Growers Association including Paul LaPorte of Ephemeral Ark Nursery, Karen Abrahams and Rob Messervy of Native Plants in Claremont and Dan Werner of Kayanase. We’re grateful to them for sharing their knowledge and photos with us, and to all the growers for the incredibly important work that they’re doing.