[Image description: the very first growth from a Lindera benzoin seed has just emerged]

Here’s a shot of one of the hundreds of seeds I transplanted yesterday. Lindera benzoin is also known as spicebush and is a critical plant for the spicebush swallowtail butterfly

We had them cold stratifying (a process that involves storing at low temperatures to overcome seed dormancy) in a five gallon bucket in a roughly 3 foot/ 1 meter pile of wood chips from the drop we had last year. They were stored in a substrate of aged wood chips, compost, rabbit droppings, and biochar we had soaked in our duck pond by using a recycled onion sack.

They were removed from the bucket and transferred to an air prune box, where we’ll grow them for a year before planting a good portion of them on the property and (fingers crossed) sell the rest to pay for my plant addiction.

• Edit to show how cool the spicebush swallowtail is