All the Dirt on Gardening

Blue-eyed grass is blooming everywhere right now and what a pretty blue show! At the center of each flower a seed capsule forms and is dropped onto the ground for next year's flowers. They are cold hardy in zones 3 to 8, need well-drained soil and thrive on thin, infertile soils. Their native range is FL, TX, and OK to New Foundland and Quebec in Canada. If you would like to grow them in your sunny garden, direct sow the seeds in October. The seeds will cold stratify over the winter. The seeds germinate in the spring. If the weather is hot and dry in the spring, the planting will have to be watered. If preferred, the seeds can be started indoors in flats after they spend 6 weeks in the refrigerator for their needed cold stratification. They will germinate best at 50-degrees so most houses will be too warm. Interestingly, though all of our flowers are blue, there are also white ones. Varieties: Prairie Blue-eyed Grass is Sisyrinchium campestre, Sword-leaf Blue-eyed ...