In the 1960s there were many forces at work that influenced the development of the wildflower industry in the US. The whole environmental movement was just getting started. The awareness of pollution in the air and water in the big cities was making people look around and wonder what kind of world their children would inherit. They also began to see that the accelerating disappearance of plant and animal species could truly leave a sterile environment for future generations. The increased attention to wildflowers was part of this awareness.

During that time the sale of wildflower seeds and plants occurred through mail order catalogs of seed collectors, such as Clyde Robin Seed Co. and mail order nurserymen like Mid-West Native Plants. Retail native plant nurseries were few and wildflower seed packets in gardens centers were rare. Occasionally, Alaskan seed collectors would travel around the lower 48 and offer their seed to garden centers and nurseries. In 1967 Applewood Seed Co. began collecting wildflower seed and offered it in retail packets to the Gift and Garden markets around the country. In 1973 Bodger Seed established a new division, Environmental Seed Producers(ESP). ESP, Applewood and other California seed companies began offering bulk wildflower seed to the landscape market. In the 1970s and 80s, more companies entered the market and wildflowers along with grass, shrub and tree seed were included in the re-vegetation and reclamation projects that were becoming much more common. Various niches developed such as prairie restoration and highway beautification. In 1982, Lady Bird Johnson opened the National Wildflower Research Center in Austin, Texas. She was instrumental in assuring the inclusion of a provision into a Federal Highway Act that required a percentage of all federal highway funds to be spent on re-vegetation with wildflowers. This caused a big surge in highway beautification.

Seed testing for purity and germination of wildflowers was hardly mentioned in the early years; people were happy to just have the seed. But by the late 1970s seed testing laboratories, particularly in Colorado and California, began developing methods of germination of flowers that were not in the AOSA Rules for Testing. Gradually, quality became as important for wildflowers as it had been for grasses, vegetables and field crops. Today, only some collectors and users of rare prairie species seem unconcerned about testing their seed before selling it.

During the 1980s substantial quantities of wildflower seed began to be sold in the retail market in various containers besides packets including bags, pouches, boxes and cans. Meadow-in-a-Can was probably the best known of these products. Most of the large national flower and vegetable packet seed companies, as well as many new smaller ones, entered the wildflower market. This marketing effort peaked with the introduction of the mulch bag concept, which used hundreds of thousands of pounds of wildflower seed per year. This product included a small amount of seed mixed with a large quantity of recycled paper mulch as a spreading agent. It was very popular with the home gardener for planting areas of 50 to 100 square feet.

Wildflowers are now used in a very wide range of situations including habitat restoration, parks, residential and commercial developments, golf courses and amusement parks to name a few. The concept has spread to most developed countries in varying degrees. Europe and Japan have been significant users for ten to twenty years.

In Europe the seeds produced for these purposes are called "meadow flowers". The word "wildflowers" is reserved for those seeds which are collected and labeled as native wildflowers. These are only sold in seed packets.

Interest in wildflowers and other environmental concerns has increased dramatically in the last three decades, particularly in areas where natural, undisturbed land is relatively limited because of intensive farming and urbanization. Although the quantity of wildflower seed used today is still small compared to grasses, vegetables, forage or field crops, the visibility and awareness of wildflowers is high because of the color and beauty they bring into our life.