Meeting the Need for Native Seed
The Chicago Botanic Garden is helping increase the supply of native seed at the local, regional, and national levels—supporting healthy landscapes where pollinators, wildlife, and people thrive.
Inside their small packages, native seeds hold the power to restore our prairies, woodlands, and wetlands. The native plants that grow from these seeds breathe new life into the habitats that provide food for bees, shelter for birds, and clean air and water for us.
As threats from climate change and invasive species increase, nationwide shortages of native seed slow down efforts to restore habitats, build green infrastructure, and grow urban gardens. The solution—producing more native seed adapted to the local conditions where it’s used—will come from local, regional, and national collaborations.
From habitat restorations in our local forest preserves to massive wildfire recovery efforts in the Western United States, the Garden is helping get the right native seed to the landscapes that need it.
Andrea Kramer, Ph.D., senior director of restoration ecology at the Garden, helps plant the first seed production beds for the Forest Preserves of Cook County Seed Amplification Program. Photo by Nina Fuentes.
Forest Preserves of Cook County native seed production
Restoring 30,000 acres of land takes a lot of native seed. The Garden is helping the Forest Preserves of Cook County (FPCC) meet this ambitious goal by supporting their efforts to grow more of the native seed they need.
The Garden co-developed FPCC’s Seed Amplification Program, including hiring and training the program’s staff. Through this partnership, the Garden grows 14,000 plants each year to expand seed farming and support habitat restoration. FPCC also stores the seeds of important species in the Garden’s Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank to preserve them for future seed production and restoration.
By working together, FPCC can grow more seed from more species, helping restore diverse, healthy habitats across Cook County.
Little bluestem (Schizachyrium scoparium) is a priority species for habitat restoration in the Midwest.
Midwest Native Seed Network
The Midwest doesn’t have enough native seed to restore habitats, plant solar farms, and develop green infrastructure. To increase native seed availability, the Garden and U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service are bringing together governments, non-profits, and the nursery industry to build the Midwest Native Seed Network.
By connecting people, sharing resources, and supporting research, the Network will help ensure a reliable supply of native seed for the Midwest.
Conservation and Land Management interns collecting seed at Guadalupe Mountains National Park. Photo by Gina Bono.
Federal native seed and restoration programs
The spread of invasive species and more frequent, intense wildfires is dramatically increasing the need for habitat restoration on federal public lands. Since 2001, the Garden has supported the U.S. government’s native seed and restoration programs—from hand collecting seed to assisting high-level efforts to increase seed availability.
The Garden works to understand the country’s native seed needs and how the U.S. government can help the private sector produce enough seed to restore millions of acres of federal land. Garden scientists contributed to the National Seed Strategy Business Plan in 2015, and the Garden’s Chief Scientist, Kay Havens, Ph.D., co-authored the National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine’s 2023 report, “An Assessment of Native Seed Needs and the Capacity for Their Supply.” Havens also serves as the co-chair of the Plant Conservation Alliance Non-Federal Cooperator Committee.
In 2024, the Garden helped plan the Seeds of Success (SOS) Seedbank, a facility designed to improve the U.S. Department of Interior’s seed collection, storage, and processing capabilities. This project builds on decades of support from the Garden, whose Conservation and Land Management interns have collected the bulk of SOS’s more than 27,000 seed collections.
Dave Sollenberger, former seed bank manager at the Chicago Botanic Garden, files a new collection of seeds in the Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank.
Dixon National Tallgrass Prairie Seed Bank
More than 100 million seeds from 1,800 species are frozen in the Garden’s Seed Bank, waiting to prevent an extinction, support habitat restoration efforts, or contribute to scientific research. By collecting and storing seeds from wild populations of native plants across the Midwest, we preserve their unique ways of surviving on our changing planet.
Seed banks are an effective insurance policy against doomsday—but the Garden wants our Seed Bank to make an impact every day. Collections are focused on preserving rare habitats and getting seed farmers and habitat restoration practitioners the seeds they need to support resilient landscapes.