Habitat gardening with native plants is catching on in Colorado, with even the Denver City & County building adjacent to the Capitol transitioning to a water-wise native plant "prairie" later this year. But as anyone who has created a native habitat garden knows, it can be difficult and expensive to secure all of the plants that you're looking for. That's where plant swaps, seed swaps, and home propagation come in!
On January 15, 2025 hundreds of Coloradans gathered for our webinar to learn from 4 of our state's leading native plant propagators—Stephen Hornbeck of High Plains Environmental Center, Emily McAuley of Denver Botanic Gardens Chatfield Greenhouse, Eric Johnson of Widespread Malus and Benevolence Orchards, and Robert Greer of PPAN's Board of Directors—about how to get started with native seed starting at home. You can access their bios, resources shared, and the webinar recording below.
Watch Propagation in Practice
Panelist Presentations
Native Plant Germination and Propagation Resources
The Wild Ones Front Range native plant propagation page has tons of propagation resources including Jan Midgley's detailed species-by-species germination guide: https://frontrange.wildones.org/native-plant-propagation/
Germination Guide Instructions - Ontario Rock Garden & Hardy Plant Society
A Penstemon Germination Guide: Penstemon -- Seed Germination Methodology
RNGR: Propagation Protocols — Reforestation, Nurseries and Genetics Resources
Alternative winter sowing using 1-gallon zip plastic bags. No milk jug needed! https://youtu.be/TVcmQlndx0M
You could also look at the Alplains germination tips page. http://alplains.com/Germination.html
Seed Sources for Colorado Native Plants
Join PPAN, Wild Ones, and other local groups for plant and seed swaps; gather from your neighbor's native plant garden, visit a free seed library...more resources coming soon!
Alplains Seeds and Germination Resources: ALPLAINS Home Page
Miss Penn’s Mountain Seeds and Germination Resources: Wild Seed
Native American Seeds and Native Seed Search
Propagation Books Recommended by Presenters
Please support PPAN by visiting our online Bookshop, where we've gathered dozens of books on gardening with native plants, including propagation resources! Every book you buy through our Bookshop link sends 10% of the sale directly to PPAN and another 10% to local brick and mortar bookshops.
The books that Stephen Hornbeck mentioned are:
Seeds: Physiology of Development and Germination by Bewley & Black
Seed Science and Technology 4th ed. By Copeland and McDonald
Questions About Which Plants to Grow for Your Area?
National Wildlife Federation's Keystone Plants by Ecoregion Maps & Lists
North American Plant Atlas for county-level native range maps for US native plants: 2014 BONAP North American Plant Atlas
Thank you to our amazing panel of expert propagators! Read more about them below.
Stephen Hornbeck is the Native Plant Nursery Manager at the High Plains Environmental Center. Always a lover of the biosphere, he found his niche in watershed ecology and habitat monitoring at a private ecological consultant company based out of Lexington, KY. Working throughout the Appalachians allowed him to see diversity and variations across a spectrum of environments, deepening his affinity for flora and fascination with evolutionary adaptations. After moving to Colorado, he found a wonderful pairing of his fascination with flora and passion for conservation at HPEC.
Emily McAuley is the Horticulturist of Greenhouse Production at the Denver Botanic Gardens where she grows thousands of native plants every year for both Chatfield Farms and York Street. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Hope College in her home state of Michigan, and promptly began working in the horticulture field. Emily spent over two years working at Walter's Gardens in Zeeland, MI, where she sometimes took care of over a million plants a week in their first three to four weeks of life. Soon, she found herself wanting to hone her skills in more stages of a plant's life, so she moved to Denver, Colorado, and joined DBG in 2021. Now she works with many kinds of plants from annuals to perennials to vegetables, growing them from seed packet, cuttings, or going out and harvesting the seeds herself. If she isn't bent over a plant, inspecting leaves, you can find her petting and praising the greenhouse cat.
Eric Johnson is the founder of Widespread Malus, a Boulder County initiative to recover apples' genetic diversity through propagation, grafting, and education. He also propagates native plants, fruit trees, and other nursery stock at Benevolence Orchard & Gardens on Jay Road, near Boulder. Eric also teaches classes on a variety of horticultural topics and, with a neighbor, maintains the Widespread Malus apple orchard on Andrus Road.
Robert Greer is a tenant-defense nonprofit attorney by day and a native-plant advocate by night, including serving on PPAN's Board of Directors. His favorite native plants include western sand cherry, bee balm, and prickly pear, and he grows thousands of native plants each year for our local plant swaps and for Indigenous groups. Rob takes a special interest in the public health benefits of urban native plants: shade, water conservation, local food, storm runoff, and temperature moderation. He also values their benefits for native fauna, as well as for their sheer beauty. Rob is an alum of U.C.L.A. and the University of Chicago Law School, and lives in Denver with his wife and two young children.
