Herbs and shrubs are employed for environmental restoration purposes. Among common herbs and shrubs, few species with low germination rates were selected and studied for enhanced germination rates and decreased germination times via soaking treatment. Rhus chinensis, incubator grown samples treated with the bacterial solution for 72hrs followed by immediate seeding showed the highest germination rate of 26.7% and germination period of 5.7 days, 3 days decrease from the control. Treatment of distilled water (t=3.79, p<0.01), nutrient broth (t=4.44, p<0.00) and bacterial solution (t=4.42, p<0.00) showed highly significant difference. In the case of soil tests, treating in the nutrient broth for 72 hrs followed by immediate seeding yielded the the highest germination rate of 23.3% with 7.3 days to initial germination, a decrease of 14.7 days with respect to the control. All the samples followed by immediate seeding showed significant difference (t=2.13, p<0.05). Incubator grown samples of Lespedeza cyrtobotrya showed different results. The incubator samples suspended for 48 hrs in distilled water followed by immediate seeding and 1 day drying displayed the highest germination rate of 96.7%, surpassing that of the control by 33.4%. The incubator samples treated with the distilled water and nutrient broth showed enhanced germination. But only the samples treated with distilled water and nutrient broth for 48hrs showed the increased germination in soil tests. All the sample treated for 24 hrs followed by immediate seeding or dried for 1 day showed initial germination as early as 1 day in incubator. The initial germinations were shortened in the samples treated with distilled water and nutrient broth for 48hrs in soil tests. Lespedeza cuneata incubator sample treated with nutrient broth for 24 hrs and dried for 1 day exhibited the highest germination rate of 83.3%, a 31.1% improvement over the control. The incubator samples treated with distilled water for 48 hrs (t=4.20, p<0.01) showed effective increase of germination. The treatment of distilled water (t=2.96, p<0.05) and bacterial solution (t=2.24, p<0.05) showed significant difference. The germination rates in soil were less than those of incubator and the control. The incubator samples treated with distilled water and bacterial solution displayed 1 day germination period, shortened by 1.3 days compared to the control. For soil grown samples, the samples treated with distilled water showed delayed initial germination and those treated with nutrient broth for 48hrs and bacterial solution for 72hrs shortened initial germination.