Sure-fire varieties for WS in hanging baskets?

This is the first thread I ever started so PLEASE respond!

I am hoping to put together some gift "baskets" for friends/family, plus some for selling at Christmas bazaars. They would be grow-your-own hanging basket kits. A kit would consist of a new hanging basket, a bag of potting mix, a bag of seed-starting mix, fertilizer, WS instructions and containers...and seeds.

My question to you experienced winter sowers is, what varieties of flowers would be ideal? (I could include several varieties.) I hope to assure success for the recipient.

The qualifications, I think, would be:

1. Small enough for a HB, or cascading
2. Blooms quickly & flowers all summer (or combo with different bloom times & something always flowering)
3. High percentage of germination
3. Not susceptible to cold damage--i.e. won't germinate and then die with cold snap

Do you think this is a bad idea? I realize the recipients would not have blooms in April when all the beautiful hanging baskets appear at Lowe's and Home Depot...but it might be fun for them to "play" with their gift while it's still winter.

Thank you (please...please respond)

NisiNJ

OK - these are some that I have (late) winter-sowed successfully that would be fine for hanging baskets:

swan river daisies
trailing verbena
trailing petunias
trailing snapdragons (asarina)
trailing lobelia (lobelia erinus)
nasturtiums
alyssum (blooms early and forever)
baby blue eyes, five-spot, pennie black (nemophila)
bidens

Some of the shorter varieties of annual salvia would work well too; they won't trail necessarily, but they'd provide a nice balance for the middle of the pot. Iresine spills nicely too, though it can get pretty big/wide.

Even herbs would work - and they can be eaten! Basil, thyme, parsley ....

Lots more, definitely, but hope this will give you some ideas.

PV

I think PV hit on a lot of good choices. I have done some, but not all of those. Of those I have done I think the petunia and trailing nasturtium would be great. I didn't have good results with baby blue eye, though. They germinated, grew well, and bloomed early but then died off as soon as the summer heat arrived.

Karen

Thank you PV and Karen. I am looking through the HPPS seed catalog for your suggestions. I will probably include little packets of several different varieties for each basket. Only a few seeds in each one, and decorate them scrapbook-style.

How long did you wait before the flowers appeared? Maybe I should include something that has interesting foilage until the flowers bloom. Coleus?

Have you had success with marigolds? I was thinking of a combination marigold, Tumbling Tom tomatoes and bush basil as one basket choice.

The only experience I have with wintersowing consists of the four tomato seeds I put in a styrofoam cup last March 1. (Hadn't heard of WS before then.) All four germinated, and are now monsters in my back yard! I love tomatoes--they're so dependable! But I know little about flowers, and have the impression that they are trickier?

Thank you for answering my initial question. I was so afraid of having a big fat goose egg under "Replies."

In my experience, most WSown annuals are pretty slow to get started. This year our spring and early summer were unusually cool and wet, and most things got off to a very slow start. Now temps are in the 90s and we've had no rain for 3 weeks.

I did coleus this year for the first time and they were exceptionally slow starters. Now they're big and full and pretty, but they didn't look like much until late June or July.

How fast they grow and bloom will depend on what plants you choose and what your weather does which is always impossible to predict.

Karen