r/solarpunk • u/Smagar05 • 2d ago
Action / DIY / Activism Making seeds bombs 💣 💐
Trying my hands at radical gardening. I saw to many vacant and ugly lots around me.
I made sure the flower mix didn't contain any invasive wild flowers.
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u/johnabbe 2d ago
Popular topic here! PSA about seed bombs from five days ago, and a couple days later, Where can I buy native seeds?
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u/Smagar05 2d ago
I'll do the further research again. From looking at each species their all in my country.
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
Country doesn't exactly give you enough info to decide off of unless you happen to live in one of a handfull of relatively small countries.
I know the U.S. is huuuge compared to most plots of land that get called "country" but here there are countless species that have become invasive in certain parts of the country which are normal everyday critters & plants in other parts of the country.
For example: I just learned the other day that the most typical, common type of turtle that we catch & release as kids at local streams in my part of the country just so happen to be wildly invasive just a few hundred miles west of me where they became popular as pets for a while
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u/Smagar05 2d ago
Jesus I'll look it up since I made 168 seeds bombs. The company is Canadian, the flowers too. But from another province.
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u/Emperor_of_Alagasia 14h ago
If it's prairie to prairie or maritime to maritime you're probably fine
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u/Smagar05 1d ago edited 1d ago
So for 14$ CAD I've made 168 seeds bombs. Which is 8-9¢ CAD peer unit.
But, I'll double check every species to make sure they aren't invasive in my region.
Edit: SOOOO of the 18 different species of flowers ONE is invasive. Cosmos Bipinmatus (Garden Cosmos).
Cheap out on everything BUT NOT THE SEEDS. Lesson learned thanks for the advice guys
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
Looks like a commercial seed mix, how sure can you be that these are accurately all non-invasive plants?
And are they then all specifically native to your local ecoregion? I really don't see much point in doing something like this unless you're working strictly with locally native plants
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u/cozy_pantz 2d ago
How do you know they aren’t? Lots of assumptions and unfounded accusations.
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
I never claimed I knew anything for certain, especially since OP didn't list their location which would be essential for knowing if something is native to their region.
What I do know is that a lot, if not the majority of commercial 'wildflower' mixes sold in the U.S. tend to contain a significant amount of non-native & potentially invasive species' seeds, have Cultivars of native plants which are less functional & valuable to their respective specialized pollinators, or there is just enough variance involved in the whole opperation that the label may not 100% accurately describe which seeds have made their way into the mix.
I have made no accusations, the only of those here are you accusing me of making some.
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u/Brief-Ecology 2d ago
I’ve heard of guerrilla gardening but now I need to know how seed bombs work
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
They kinda don't?
They're a fun and sorta 'trendy' way of spreading seeds, but wildly inefficient & unreliable when compared to most other methods of germination/planting
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u/Brief-Ecology 2d ago
Well tbf that's the same strategy a lot of plant species take
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
How do you mean that?
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u/Brief-Ecology 2d ago
Just that a lot of plant species produce far more seeds than will ever actually survive. This gets into some ecological theory, like r-selected vs k-selected species. But, without getting into all of that, some species have long lives and don't reproduce as much, whereas some have shorter lives but put a lot more resources into reproduction. But I'd say in general, most seeds don't sprout in nature, and most of those that do don't survive long.
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
Okay, but what does that at all have to do with your above comment?
I'm not sure what you're trying to say here at all, could you try to explain what you're meaning better?
For example in your first line, I don't see what the fact that many plants produce an excessive amount of seeds has anything to do with what I mentioned regarding the practicality of 'Seed Bombs" as an effective means of "guerilla gardening" native seeds
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u/Brief-Ecology 2d ago
I was just making an offhand comment about how seed bombs sound similar to the reproductive strategy of a lot of plants. It was basically a joke about how ineffective plant reproduction is in general.
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u/Ashirogi8112008 2d ago
Oh yeah dude, a ton of plants just nut into the wind and hope for the best lol
I was only trying to comment on the fact that as far as human altered planting/germination goes, Seed Bombs are way less efficient for your time commitment compared to other methods, despite being decidedly the most fun/engaging way to bring people into the trend of urban restoration efforts
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u/MidorriMeltdown 2d ago
Are those seeds for plants that are native to the area you plan to bomb?
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u/Smagar05 2d ago
I went for the most affordable and accessible option. Some of the species are native to my province, and the reste to my country I'm planting them in an urban environment where there few plants in general.
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u/nadafradaprada 2d ago
Don’t forget to wait till after the final frost is past :)
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