Once the seeds are on the ground, they need to stay there. That means we aren’t going to do the normal “fall cleanup” that most outdoor spaces do. If we did, we'd just wipe all of the new seed away. This is particularly true when you use high powered leaf blowers. A garden full of dormant plants is full of life, color and textures. They express a mood unique to the season. What some think of as dead plants is actually a landscape crackling with movement and beauty. The seeds greatly benefit from letting the dormant plants stay.
Yet before the spring comes, all of that water is doing something else too. In most places, it’s not always a frozen tundra from Dec to March. It freezes and then thaws and then freezes again and then thaws again. All of this freezing and thawing prepares the shell of the seed to crack open when the time is just right. In fact, native plants don’t want to be sowed in warm or hot weather. They like getting put into the environment in late fall when the frost is starting to be a nightly occurrence.
It’s knowing all of these little facts that make my visit to the rain park so exciting. You can literally see nature at work. This coming spring should be a very amazing time around in South Orange. The Rain Park will have more flowers than last year and nature will be a little more on display.