Link roundup

Here are several weeks' worth of interesting stuff...

• Growing native perennials from seed from Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens:  This is New England focused but has some good tips.  Propagating your own plants from seeds is a lot cheaper than buying from plant sales.  For your first try, I recommend cardinal flower (Lobelia cardinalis), which has an unusually high germination rate for a native plant.  Its beautiful red flowers are great for hummingbirds.
• What it takes a nursery to stock a plant from Beautiful Wildlife Garden:  Ever wonder why nurseries don't carry more native plants?  This blog entry explains the steps in growing a plant until it's big enough to sell and discusses how much demand is necessary to make it profitable for nurseries.
• Embrace the clay! from Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens:  Here are some plants that actually like clay soil.  All of these except the coneflower are native to Virginia.
• Aruncus dioicus ~ A treat for pollinators from Native Plants and Wildlife Gardens:  Apparently I read this blog a lot?  Anyway, this is another VA native plant.  The blog entry explains how versatile it is as an ornamental.  I haven't noticed a lot of pollinators on my own, but it's still a nice plant.
• Thomas Rainer:  Interpreting nature from View from Federal Twist:  This summarizes an interesting talk by Rainer about designing self sustaining plant communities with different layers.  The post includes some pictures of doing this in a suburban setting.  Making it look orderly enough for suburbia is an interesting challenge.