Once the native plant garden has been planted, the following year is the challenging task of identifying all of the baby plants coming up in the bed and deciding if they are seedlings of the natives or weeds coming into the garden. Many baby seedlings have seed leaves when they first come up and look nothing like their parents. Often just giving a mystery plant more time to develop will reveal it’s secret identity.
There are a few good resources to use for seedling ID. The Seedling ID guide for native prairie plants sold by the Missouri Department of Conservation is a small flip book with photos of common prairie plants in the seedling stage. Grow Native also has a seedling ID list on their website at https://grownative.org/native-plant-info/seedling-identification/ . For weed ID I usually use the University of MO Extension site, https://weedid.missouri.edu/ . The Missouri Native Plant Society facebook page is also a good source for getting plant photo ID.
When growing plants from seed it is helpful to look up what the seedlings look like before hand so that they are not accidentally weeded out or weeds allowed to grow under a mistaken identity. Even when germinating seeds in pots sometimes a weed seed will show up and crowd out the native seedling.
A few things to look for when identifying a seedling. Feel the stem, square stems are mints, to tell grasses and sedges apart feel for edges on the stem of sedges. Does the foliage have a scent? The first two leaves to emerge are the seed leaves, these leave will not look like the parent so look for leaves above the first set when comparing to neighboring plants. Remember that seeds can flow downhill, so compare the seedling to plants uphill and upwind.
Each year seedling ID will become easier as the gardener become more familiar with the native plants in the garden and the invasive weeds to keep out. The sooner a weed can be identified and removed, the easier it is to uproot. In the fall remove seeds from native plants that seed too aggressively in the garden to save work pulling out seedlings later. Removing seeds also removes food for birds so judge what is more important, to lower maintenance or provide food.
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