Planting cool weather stuff

I want to plant Lupines, Delphinium, Larkspur and Poppies. I know they grow and bloom here in the spring, grown as annuals, because I've seen them. I just don't know when to plant the seed. I bought seed in the spring and have been keeping them in the refrigerator till now. Is it time to plant? We're still in the upper 80's in the day(sometimes 90's) and down to mid to upper 60's at night. Our rainy season should have started by now, but only had a couple of showers so far.
End of December/first of January is our coldest time, with low usually not below 39*F. The plants I saw flowering in gardens here were blooming at the same time as the bluebonnets.

I don't plant them from seed, but will planting little 4' pots of them within the next few weeks to a month. I would guess you'd be about a month later than here?

Susie,

I plan on putting my seeds in the ground around the end of Nov. By then the chances of beastly hot days are a lot slimmer. I just have to remember to keep the area wet to get decent germination...

Thanks y'all! I wish I could find the 4" pots here, they're more of a sure thing for me. I'm like Donna, I forget to water!
I will wait till November to plant. Today feels like winter, brrrrrrrrr......it's 56*!

I'm afraid I jinxed us, Susie. I said on another thread that we wouldn't get 40 F night temps for 2 more months....

It's 52 here now and it's suppose to get to 40 tonight.

Yeah, we're supposed to get 38 tonight! Gee, hope all my cool-weather plants can take this. :-)

I also hope the butterfly gingers and ox-blood lillies I just planted can handle it, too! :-(

It hasn't gotten out of the 50's today and I'm freezing!! We are NEVER this cold in October! I talked to a gal in Minnisota today and mentioned that I was freezing. She said "oh, how cold is it?" and I said "56 and I'm sooooooooo cold" she started laughing at me! She said it was only 30 where she was!

LOL! Yeah, I guess it's all relative. But I prefer calling 56 cold and 30 freezing!

Yes, it did feel good today since I took delivery of 4 yards of mulch this morning. Started at 11:00 and finished spreading 3 yards at 6:30 with a 1 and a half hour break.

Why do the beds look soooooo good with new mulch !!!

I am soooo jealous!! You have already mulched your beds!?! Okay, as soon as I save up... many dollars, I'm having a mulching party, and YOU'RE invited, lol!

Mary, you could use all those Pine needles from your neighborhood and save a lot of money.
They work very well and don't blow around in the wind.
It has been pretty cold around here too,34 last night, we have to really bundle up to go walking in the mornings, but I bet it will be warm again soon, after all, this is Texas.
Josephine.

Maggiemoo, the Rose Emporium told me that gingers will make it through the winter well if they are established and mulched or covered with something (even a blanket). If they are not established, you may have to be more careful with them. Oxblood lilies around here are tough as iron once established. Until then I don't know.

Thanks for the info! I'll keep them plenty mulched this winter.

Josephine, it's unbelievable, but the neighbors don't take me seriously when I tell them that I want their pine straw! I'm not giving up, I'll still go begging them not to send it all to the landfill, I want it!

They all think I'm a crazy lady. :-)

Susie-
My neighbor down the street always has GORGEOUS poppies every year...
She said the seeds should have been scattered two weeks ago. You are further south, so NOW would be just about right.
;0)
-T

The general rule of thumb is that for every 2-3 hours north/south you travel the weather will be a month ahead/behind the next zone. For us San Antonio will have winter a month before we do and it will be spring here a month before San Antonio's arrives. (We hstorically start planting sorghum here on Geo. Washington's brithday; corn goes in 2-3 weeks earlier.)

Plano is 8 hours north of me and Susie is 2 hours further south. For our weather to be consistently like yours is now will take at least another month or so. My concern is that putting out poppy seeds now (of which I have numerous varieties this year) we will have another cold snap before the weather starts staying cool here, my seeds will sprout prematurely and then die in the heat that will follow. (It's not the least bit uncommon to wear T-shirts, shorts and flip-flops on Christmas day here.)

Living in this part of the US is very different than living further north. I have annuals that have lived in my garden, uninterrupted, for 2 full years.

Wow...guess I know nothing of gardening in zone 10!, lol...
(only fantasize, lol...)
Susie-scrap what I said! lol...
-T

Taylor, I've lived here 2 years and I'm still confused! We usually have a cool spell in Dec/Jan and again in Feb. They rarely last more than a few days and it will pop back up into the 80's.
We had below freezing last Dec. It had been 15-20 years since the previous freeze.
Bouganvillas, poinsettia, jacaranda, golden shower, lemon eucalyputs and rubber trees grow huge down here.

Do you have more bugs? I would think that with the more temperate conditions, you'd have more insects?
-T

When I had sheep I had to worm every 17-21 days year round to keep them from killing my livestock. Most other places worm once, maybe twice, a year....

I talked with a good DG friend in Minnesota last evening and he bragged his area has not yet had a frost......

Josephine,
only bad thing about the pine needles is having to bag um up and drag um home..
not a lot of pine up here, soooooo I am going to ask the pecan houses for waste shells this season and see how that goes....whaca think?...........
jackie...

Jackie, I think pecan shells, hulls, and leaves are all wonderful. I told Mary about the pine needles because they have a lot of pines around her area, but any kind of leaves will do.
If you have access to cotton hulls they are excellent too.
Josephine.

I use the leaves off my big oak tree. When I tried to compost them one year and they were exactly the same a year later I knew they'd make great mulch! ;->

Cotton hulls make great mulch??? I need to talk to the cotton co-op!
We have mosquitoes! Ticks can be a problem, we use Frontline on our dog. We have mites, mealy bugs, scale.........no worse than during the summer in TN, but they live all year here and the numbers can explode if they aren't sprayed. One other good thing, we have lady bugs, praying mantis and lacewings that are here mostly year round.

Be careful with fresh cotton hulls around monocots.The herbicide they use on the cotton may still be active, thus hazardous to your plants.

Donna, I think you may be right about the herbicide. Of course we don't know how close to harvesting they will use those products.
Isn't it sad that we have to watch out for all these unseen dangers?
I guess it might be better to compost the cotton hulls first, to give the chemicals a chance to work themselves out.
If you could know when, or whether they used chemicals it would help.
Josephine.

They defoliate all cotton crops here before harvest, so I'd better not mess with cotton hulls. I'll stick to straw and bunny poo.