Native Species Seed Paper Art

Have you seen any of those cool post cards or wedding invitations that are printed on "seed cards"?  These cards contain seeds within the paper and if you plant them they will grow wild flowers of various types.  They are a super cool way of boosting the environment by assisting the declining bee populations and what a super mini gift.  How cool would it be to print a thank you to your guests on seed paper  that they can take home and plant.   It would be a wonderful inexpensive wedding gift for your table too. 

While doing some research on the subject I found there are certain seed papers that will actually do better based on the region you live.  Check out this map below.

Find your region and the corresponding seed types
1. Pacific Northwest - Black-Eyed Susan
2. North Central - Smooth Blue Aster or Prairie Coneflower
3. Great Lakes - Smooth Blue Aster, Showy Goldenrod, Black-Eyed Susan or Yellow Coneflower
4. Quebec - Black-Eyed Susan
5. Mountain - Smooth Blue Aster or Prairie Coneflower
6. California - Black-Eyed Susan
7. Southwest - Black-Eyed Susan
8. South Central - Black-Eyed Susan or Lemon Mint
9. Southeast - Black-Eyed Susan or Lemon Mint
10. Mid-Atlantic - Black-Eyed Susan or Showy Goldenrod
11. Maritimes - White Yarrow

How does seed paper work?  The native seeds are all small enough to work on inkjet printers with any artwork.   When planted appropriately in regular growing conditions, they will grow.  Plant seed paper under 1/8" of soil. Water thoroughly. Place in a sunny corner and keep moist during germination.  Where can you get seed paper?  I found some here at Botanical Paper Works  where I happened to borrow that cool map up above with the region information.   I plan on making some Printable sets to be used on Seed paper and found that these guys had some cool seed paper guaranteed not to grow weeds either.

Recommended Methods of Plantable Paper PrintingWhen printing on plantable paper, I recommend using the following methods of printing:

• Ink-jet
• Off-set printing press, 1, 2 or 4 color
• Screen printing
• Letterpress
• Calligraphy

Do not use a laser printer, they can kill the seeds.

Tips for Getting Amazing Plantable Paper ResultsIn order to get the best results from your plantable paper printing project, here are some tips

• Avoid using heavy ink coverage unless you have a professional printer.
• If using a heavy ink coverage for backgrounds be sure to print on HQ settings and run a test print.
• Plantable paper is uncoated so some slight bleeding will occur. Be sure to keep that in mind and avoid printing very small text on dark colored backgrounds. I recommend at least 8-9 pt fonts.
• (For the Professionals) To ensure accurate alignment, I recommend printing 4-color jobs on a 4-colorpress, rather than doing two passes on a 2-color press.
• (For the Professionals) If printing off-set, do not use Acetic Acid based fountain solution as it will cause the paper to delaminate and pile on the blankets. The automatic double sheet detector should be disabled because of the variances in the caliper of the hand made paper.

 
Now last you may be curious as to whether or not you can plant seeds meant for other regions.  Botanical Paper Works states  they don't encourage planting native species outside of their native range but if you’re willing to provide a little more T.L.C. you may be able to grow a plant outside its native environment.  Sometimes plants will grown and flower outside their regions.  

Here is a selection of tags that would work great with seed paper. Jars, Birds, Flying.    Enjoy!