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So I finally gave up on my containers today. Out of 20 containers, only 8 germinated. None of the containers with topsoil germinated anything (except weeds). Of the containers that did germinate something, 3 of them had only 1 seedling, and the max # of seedlings was 5 (I sowed about 25-30 seeds in each container).
The species that did best were teaberry (Gaultheria) and obedient plant (Physostegia). Ironically, the teaberry is considered "difficult from seed." Not a single hardy geranium (G. maculatum), tick-trefoil (Desmodium canadense), or columbine (Aquilegia canadensis) germinated.
Obviously, topsoil was a bad mistake I won't make again. But even some of the containers with potting mix failed to germinate. I wonder whether low-quality seeds were to blame. Stratification probably wasn't the issue, because every container got at least a month of cold weather, and most of these species require only short stratification. I did pop open a lot of the containers about 2 months ago when we had a hot stretch, and some of the containers subsequently suffered squirrel depredations. Finally, another issue might be that some native species simply don't like container culture. I hope there's some truth to that, because I have about 125,000 seeds I'll be direct-sowing this fall!
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