The substrate should be of firm silt or a sand-silt mixture. Hard clay or silty soft mud should be avoided. A slow current is better than stagnant or rapidly flowing water. A marked but open plot, adjacent to the fenced plot, should be set up as a control planting to see if fencing is needed. Whether fencing is used or not, the planting area should be permanently marked so it can be relocated.
Most studies recommend mixing seeds with wet, sticky mud or clay soil before planting.
Pieces of this mixture are then scattered in the planting area, ideally in spring. This could be ecologically important because such plants might have competition from other species that are phenologically advanced. If winter buds are going to be harvested for transplanting, a V. americana bed should be found in the same locale. Winter buds can be collected by sieving substrate collected from an existing V. americana bed by shovel or with a hydraulic dredge. Winter buds normally float to the water surface when loosened from the sediments.