When installing your wildflower garden you can choose to use seeds or plugs or a combination of the two.  Growing plants from seed can be a very rewarding and enjoyable experience. Iin fact it can be quite addicting and before you know it you have a new hobby.  Gardening really is a journey not a destination. On the other hand purchasing plugs can simplify and speed up the process, providing faster results.  Other factors to consider include the size of your project, your budget and the amount of time you have to devote to it.  Sometimes using a combination of plugs and seeds can be a good way to find a balance between all these factors.

The advantages of using plugs really centres on ease and quick results.  Plugs come labelled and ready to plant. They grow in book like containers that open allowing the root ball to be easily removed or put back.  Large enough to handle comfortably the root balls are about the length of your average hand shovel making digging the holes and planting the plugs quick and easy.  Healthy root systems are quick to catch and mature plants are easy to locate and identify after they have been planted.  Plugs planted in the spring are at least one year old and should bloom and produce seed during the current season, allowing you to enjoy the fruits of your labour sooner.   One perennial plug will cost you a little more than what you would pay for a package of seed, however most perennial wildflowers produce more seed on one flower than you will ever receive in an average seed package.

Reasons to choose seed over plugs might start with the reason mentioned above -, growing plants from seed is a wonderful pastime and something millions of people enjoy doing every spring.  Other reasons might be economic or effectiveness in your specific situation.  If you have a large area just waiting to explode into a field of weeds you need coverage and you need it fast!  Using a seeding company to spray a large area with a mix of annual and perennial wildflowers and native grasses would be the most economic and effective way of dealing with that site.  These seed mixes favor grasses and do not have the diversity of wildflowers you might be hoping for but you can over-seed with wildflower seed or plant plugs at the same time or later to increase the variety of wildflowers. 

 Large prairie meadow type plantings or naturalizing projects can be effectively hand seeded out with a mix of wildflower and grass seed.  An average naturally occurring prairie site would see grasses occupying up to about 95 % of the space.   Most people tend to seed a higher percentage of wildflowers for obvious reasons, up to 80% wildflower seed.  Using annual cover crops when seeding higher percentages of wildflower seed can help control weeds while the perennials grow to fill the space.