The National Wildlife Refuge System has an active habitat restoration program and annually seeds thousands of hectares with native plant species. The noxious weed, Canada thistle (Cirsium arvense), plagues these restorations. This study evaluates planting methodology and seed mixes with the goal of recommending optimal methods to reduce infestation of noxious weeds, especially Canada thistle, in new restorations. Three planting methods (dormant season broadcast, growing season summer] broadcast, and growing season summer] drill) were fully crossed with three levels of seed diversity (10, 20, and 34 species plus a fourth level, 58 species, on the three sites in Iowa]) in a completely randomized design replicated on nine sites in Minnesota and Iowa.