Notes from the land · July 2026

Starting from Seed vs. Liners

Colored-pencil sketch of a seed tray with coontie seedlings next to a young plant in a one-gallon nursery pot — The two ways every plant here begins. A seed tray on the left, and a liner already growing on in its first gallon pot on the right.

Every plant in the nursery starts one of two ways. From seed in a tray, or as a liner, which is the trade's word for a rooted starter plant bought small and grown on.

The trade is time against control.

Starting from Seed

Seed is slow and honest. A coontie (Zamia integrifolia) from seed spends its first year making a frond or two and a fat underground stem, and it will not apologize for the pace. Beautyberry (Callicarpa americana) is the opposite story, running from seed to a full gallon pot in about a season.

Starting from Liners

Liners buy back the calendar. A muhly grass (Muhlenbergia capillaris) plug set in spring fills out a one-gallon pot by fall, plume and all. When a contractor needs two hundred matched grasses for an HOA entrance, liners are how a small nursery says yes.

Why Bother with Seed

Because seed is where the local genetics live. A coontie grown from North Florida seed carries the cold tolerance and the habits of plants that already survive here. A plant can be native on paper and still come from anywhere. Seed from here keeps it native to here. And some of what we grow, coontie included, resents being rushed no matter what you start with.

The slow crops start from seed early and wait. The rest get whichever start fills a bench fastest. Everything ends up in the same shade.