Broadcast sowing + Miyawaki Forest Method for Herbs, Shrubs, and Grasses?

Hi!

I'm working on slowly improving different areas of my property (20 acres in far northern catskills, about 1500ft elevation, zone 5a); my goals are to increase the overall diversity of native plant and fungal life to attract and sustain wildlife and encourage ecological succession/restoration, and to create a food forest area as well. I'm definiitely a lazy gardener rewilding type, so I want to disrupt the existing soil as little as possible, while building more diversity. The land is likely old pasture land which was then converted to apple orchard and has been slowly rewilding since the house was built 30 years ago.

I want to get a bunch of understory seeds from Prairie moon and others, and just broadcast sow them amongst the existing vegetation. Would broadcast sowing without soil preparation just be throwing money down the drain? Or could it work in a Miyawaki type way? I figured that if I threw them out before a storm, they would wash into the soil/through the leaf litter and other plants, and then hopefully cold stratify over the winter, and almost be kind of high-density plantings like the Miyawaki method? The seed species I have in mind are:
Big Bluestem
Indian Grass
Little Bluestem
Broomsedge
Hairy Wood Chess
Hayden's Sedge
Cord Grass
Northern Blue Flag Iris
Speckled Alder
NJ Tea
Red Root
Pagoda Dogwood
Shrubby St. John's Wort
Winterberry Holly
Prairie Ninebark
Wafer Ash
Fragrant Sumac
Bladdernut
Dutchman's Breeches
Blue Cohosh
Black Cohosh
Hairy Mountain Mint
Elderberries
Sweet Joe Pye Weed
Swamp Thistle

Would any of these work for lazy broadcast sowing? I would use different combinations in different habitat types:

I have a few "habitat" areas I've identified so far:
-Relatively flat-ish forest area with ~30 year old white pines, maples (though some seem to be in decline/dying), shagbark hickorys, a few red oaks, hornbeam, winterberry, beech. The understory is kind of thin/sad overall; zillions and zillions of teeny tiny maple seedlings or ash seedlings (seems to change year to year), a few mosses, and a few invasives (the main things on the property are Morrows and Tartarian honeysuckle, oriental bittersweet, japanese barberry, multiflora rose, garlic mustard)
-Seasonal Creek: Runs through forest area, down a hill from the road, next to an old stone wall. A large red oak recently rotted and fell at the steeper part of the hill. Dries up in late summer/fall. Connects to the swamp bottom below. Currently has the same mix of trees, with some canopy openings/vines, ferns, and mosses, along with some bare ground areas and grasses (I think the creek level changes significantly based on season)
-Forest clearing with old apple trees that have mostly declined, and are now covered with invasive honeysuckle, oriental bittersweet, multiflora rose, japanese barberry, virgina creeper, riverbank grapes. I've been working on cutting down the honeysuckle, bittersweet, multiflora rose and japanese barberry by cutting back to roots repeatedly, and then I'm trying to prune the grapes + virginia creeper (but keeping since they are native) out of the tree canopies at least because some of the trees are getting taken out with storms. The vine piles over the dead trees have created some interesting structures though, that seem to be nice wildlife shelter, so I've tried not to get too crazy there for now; I think turkeys are living there.
-Pollinator meadow: mostly common milkweed, giant and wrinkled goldenrods, escaped mint, chickweeds, raspberry, blackberry--I'm working to control the invasive bittersweet, multiflora rose, barberry, and honeysuckles in this area with repeated cutting while leaving the other stuff alone for now. I thought there were some coneflowers there too but haven't seen them yet this year.
-Future food forest area: Currently has a maple, gray dogwoods, silky dogwoods, sensitive ferns, and lots of drainage issues in late winter/spring (standing water that I think is stressing the maple), along with mixed "lawn" (red and white clovers, orchard grass, wild strawberry, birds food trefoil, beardtongues). I just planted some hazelnuts, persimmons, red ossier dogwood, river birch, and swamp oak (to help suck up moisture before it gets to the leach field below it), cranberry, and elderberry here. I'd like to add a dry riverbed to help with drainage, directing it more through the dogwoods (I think that was the "old" path, and a french drain failed creating the current issues, so I'm thinking I'll just dig up the pipe and retrench it and add rocks instead of using pipe).
-Leach field: this is downslope from the food forest area--has some virginia creeper growing pretty close by, taking over where I had cut down a bunch of honeysuckle and bittersweet this spring.  This area also has a mix of clovers and orchard grasses on it, but I keep the area over the leach field fairly well cut (except during baby bunny season).
-Tall grasses: There are some Chinese silvergrasses and a forsythia growing near a forest edge--the wildlife uses them, but I'd like to replace with something native, so I'm adding giant river cane to see if it takes at all, and was thinking of mixing in some big bluestem seed?
-Wild Berry patch: Raspberries and wild strawberries on a gentle slope--it also has a few goldenrods, blackberries, dewberries, lowbush blueberries, bull thistle, mixed in, and I've added about 6 varieties of hazelnut saplings to the area.
-Front road area: Gray dogwood and invasive honeysuckle mix. This area runs along the power lines and is at the top of the property so gets absolutely battered by storm winds in the summer and winter; mature trees have fallen here. I'd like to create more of a windbreak overall. I've left the honeysuckle there this year because I didn't want to open it up to too much erosion or wind until I figure out a plan. There is currently a large gap where a bunch of stuff was cut down a couple of years ago, and it has degraded soil going down a slope (tons of woodchips, great mullins growing in it, etc). into the wooded area, and it's clearly opening some of the young trees up to wind damage.
-Steep forest hill: after the flat area of the forest, and behind the house, there is a very very steep hill; it currently seems to have mostly hardwoods (again about 30 years old) on the slope; at the bottom of the slope it transitions to soggy bottom/swamp area
-Swamp bottom: I haven't been able to totally assess yet, other than cutting out a bunch of multiflora rose and barberry this spring; seems to have shrubbier species and lots of the same invasives happening

I've learned so much from you guys already---really appreciate any wisdom or suggestions!

I've done a lot of that and seem to get pretty poor success rates. But some stuff joins the party and it's very little work. If money were tighter than time, I'd do it differently.

I suspect that you will need 100 seeds for every plant that survives, that is how nature tends to work. However if you have plenty of seeds you will get more robust survivors that way! If you don't have plenty of seeds then you could try sowing thickly in a cleared area in each location and transplant the extra seedlings to spread out the patch. Hopefully once established and happy the plants will seed and/or spread themselves.

Thank you both! This is helpful--thinking maybe I'll hedge my bets and do 50% of the seed as broadcast sowing, and save 50% to do small miyawaki "plots" of prepared soil with mixed groups of seeds in them, and see what happens.

You could also consider 'seed bombs' or 'seed balls' https://permies.com/wiki/112201/pep-foraging/lbs-seed-balls-PEP-BB Coating the seeds with clay is supposed to protect them a bit from nibblers and help them germinate at the right time (after rain) in some climates. It isn't something I've tried, but may be worth a thought too.

Nancy Reading wrote:You could also consider 'seed bombs' or 'seed balls' https://permies.com/wiki/112201/pep-foraging/lbs-seed-balls-PEP-BB Coating the seeds with clay is supposed to protect them a bit from nibblers and help them germinate at the right time (after rain) in some climates. It isn't something I've tried, but may be worth a thought too.

I love this idea! I just posted over there to get some info/tips on species and results. I was thinking about seed balls before, but the native gardening reddit thread was super negative about them--saying that they don't work/nothing takes?

Fukuoka had an approach to over-/ inter-seeding which closely preceded the harvest or other structural/ soil disturbance.  We did some of what you describe after windthrow/ salvage/ reforestation, though much of the expensive & valuable understorey & opening seed did not seem to take into some exposed soil/ some grass & forbs/ some fern.  Over the years a few restrained specimens started gradually pocking out of obscurity.  Try seeding right before leaf-drop, then big snowfall, then spring awakening.  It is an on-going process with statistical quantities of seed just like nature!  Once you have patches going you can spread your own seed.  Your observations & interpretations across your place are very astute, & I think you'll do well.