Amelia Richter

Creating an Online Native Seed-Bank

A Project by Amelia Richter

Check out her Resource!

My project’s goal was to make it easier for both experienced and new gardeners to incorporate native Kansas species into their gardens and outdoor spaces. Native plant species are the base of a healthy ecosystem and provide food, shelter, and other needs to the diversity of life we share our state with. Native seeds can be hard to get a hold of and many gardeners rely on receiving native seeds from fellow gardeners. To make native seeds more available, I wanted to build on this dynamic of seed sharing in the form of a seed bank, however, I did not want to limit participation to those who could physically visit this bank, especially during the time of a pandemic, so I decided to build an online seed bank. I focused my time and resources on building this infrastructure and gathering knowledge and equipment to facilitate seed storage. I additionally gathered some seeds to start building an inventory, though this portion was secondary to building the online seed bank itself. 
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Through this project I learned a lot about native plants, what they are called, when they bloom, where certain species like to grow, and what special properties some poses. I also learned that I am only scratching the surface on this front. ​