Native Plants
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Ask Mr. Smarty Plants
Ask Mr. Smarty Plants is a free service provided by the staff and volunteers at the Lady Bird Johnson Wildflower Center.
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Saturday - February 17, 2007
From: Lago Vista, TX
Region: Southwest
Topic: Transplants, Wildflowers
Title: Transplanting seedlings washed out of area by rain
Answered by: Damon Waitt
QUESTION:
I sowed a rather large area in my wild back yard in wildflowers. There is no grass. A few weeks later after we had been watering them because of no rain (in Sept), we got way too much rain and many of the seeds were washed into my regular yard. I have noticed little plants coming up in the grass and want to know how to identify some of the plants and ask when and how to dig them up and transplant them.ANSWER:
Mr. Smarty Plants thinks there is a high probability that those little plants in the grass are from the washed away seeds. We are working on adding seedling images to our image gallery but that project is a few months from completion and you don't have that long if you want to transplant the seedlings back where they belong. To transplant the seedlings, take a knife and core into the earth around the seedling taking special care to get the entire tap root. This should create a small plug which you can easiiy transplant back into a new spot. Water your new transplants once dailiy until they start growing again and you should be good to go.
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