(A Butterfly Bed planted with seeds from the Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library. Photo: provided)
As the leaves are falling and we prepare for the coming winter, you may not give much thought to gardening or seed starting. But winter is in fact the right time to sow native seeds, and a local seed library has you covered with a series of seed giveaways across the city over the coming weeks.
The Ottawa Wildflower Seed Library (OWSL) is a grassroots organization that promotes gardening with native plants to provide food and habitat for bees, butterflies, insects, birds, and other wildlife. In November and December, the OWSL is hosting seven seed giveaway events across Ottawa, where you can receive native seeds—for free.
The seed giveaway taking place closest to Stittsville is on December 21, 2024, from 1:00 to 3:00 pm at the Beaverbrook Centre, 1002 Beaverbrook Road, Kanata.
Seeds will be organized by their preferred growing conditions and OWSL volunteers can help you find what will grow best in your space, whether it is sunny, shady, dry, or wet. Even if you don’t have much garden space, native seeds can still be grown in containers on a balcony or patio.
Native plants are adapted to the freeze-thaw cycle of our fall and spring and native seeds need exposure to the cold stratification this cycle gives them to sprout, making winter the right time to sow them. It’s a simple process to winter sow the seeds. The OWSL has full instructions on its website, but it can be as simple as planting the seeds in a pot or recycled plastic container with drainage holes, covering them, placing them outside, and forgetting about them until spring.
Native plants bring a host of benefits not only to your garden, but also to the local ecosystem. They are easy to care for because they are adapted to our climate. Once established, they require virtually no watering or weeding so they are much less work than gardening with non-native plants. They also support wildlife by providing food and habitat for birds, butterflies, bees, and other native pollinators. Introduced and modified species displace natural food sources. Growing native plants can help restore ecosystems and re-establish corridors of habitat for wildlife.
The OWSL was founded in 2020 out of a desire to contribute to the fight against climate change and to advance Indigenous reconciliation. It is built on three pillars: providing free access to native seeds, teaching people about gardening sustainably, and asking native seed recipients to reciprocate the gift of
nature.
To this end, OWSL hosts this series of seed giveaways across Ottawa each fall, where donors contribute native seeds that they’ve harvested from their gardens so that others can sow these seeds and grow their own plants. In 2023, the library distributed seeds to 800 individuals, schools, and community projects at their seed giveaways, and then mailed seeds to 2,000 more in early 2024. All told, the library distributed over 200 different species of native plants.
Find more information about the seed giveaway events and find full instructions for winter sowing at the OWSL website: wildflowerseedlibrary.ca.
