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I recently heard about seed balls (small balls of clay, soil and seeds mostly used to add plants to abandoned areas) and while I very much like the idea I was a little bit skeptical of their effectiveness.

Could anyone with experience describe how effective they are, and how to maximize their effectiveness?

The only related question I could find on SE was this one, which highlights a few important parameters to keep in mind (humidity and integrity of the ball) but doesn't say anything about the success rate of well designed balls and doesn't give a particular recipe: How to properly seed bomb a particular area with drones

While I would really like learning about general guidelines, if such general recommendations are impossible to give, I am more specifically interested in the effective design of seed bombs for urban areas of western Europe, hardiness zone 6, with seeds that promote future growth (seeds that can survive and maybe help with soil compaction as well as poor soil quality).

A.N.
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  • By the way, there is no 'guerrilla-gardening' tag for now on the SE. If someone with enough reputation thinks it would be a good addition, be my guest. – A.N. Mar 31 '18 at 14:19
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    done. I think it is a difficult question, because there is no controlled environment to test different seed "bombs". I find often there is no good scientific background on building seed "substrate". Nature is strong, so I would prefer to choose good seeds (good species, for specific environment). Seeds will find their way. – Giacomo Catenazzi Mar 31 '18 at 15:02
  • https://honeybeesuite.com/why-seed-bombs-dont-work/ – Graham Chiu Mar 31 '18 at 18:37
  • @GrahamChiu The link is highly relevant, and that article is one of the reasons I decided to ask this question. It explains very well the difficulties of it, but some people are still reporting success with seed bombs so said difficulties might get overcome (the question being whether it can be done systematically or if successes are just dumb luck and do not come from a particularly crafty design). – A.N. Mar 31 '18 at 20:25
  • Your question is a bit broad at present. You need to specify what location you're trying to seed, and with what eg. Native seeds – Graham Chiu Mar 31 '18 at 20:31
  • As I think the answer is highly location and seed specific. – Graham Chiu Mar 31 '18 at 20:33
  • @GrahamChiu I made my location more precise and now broadly describe what kind of seeds I would like (what really matters is that the seeds survive the poor conditions and change those conditions for other plants that could get planted later). I hope that's specific enough? – A.N. Mar 31 '18 at 21:00
  • Is there an actual site you have in mind? Remember, this is a gardening stackexchange site, and questions about reforestation or whatever you have in mind might be off topic. – Graham Chiu Mar 31 '18 at 21:17
  • This site talks about how seed bombs are given to some of the 20,000 participants in an annual bike ride across the state of Iowa. Basically they just throw the milkweed seed in the ditches as they ride. They have no data on how well it works, but they do give a recipe. https://iowaenvironmentalfocus.org/tag/ragbrai/ – wanderweeer Mar 31 '18 at 21:54
  • They say that they need to 1.8 billion stems to rejuvenate the monarch population. The bike race has been going for 3 years with the seeds now but no information on how well it's working. Shame as it could all be for naught. – Graham Chiu Apr 01 '18 at 03:27
  • https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A4-bwW8PWI0 Masanobu Fukuoka Makes Seed Balls in Japanese though – Graham Chiu Apr 01 '18 at 03:30

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