What have you wintersowed so far #5

Gemini: You are probably correct. These were seeds that were given in a packet labeled Myosotis at Locust Grove in Kentucky when we visited there last fall and I sowed them. If the true Myosotis is perennial, that's for me. Whatever it is, it has a lovely crystal blue color and was quite attractive in flower. In fact, I've sheared some of them back and they are blooming again, a nice bonus.

Anita: I agree with you about WSing being a cheap way to try new plants not available at the local nurseries. Not to brag, because I am far from an expert gardener, but at most of our nurseries, I know more than the people running them. There is one glowing exception, but they deal mainly in shrubs and trees. I tried Clarkias this year and won't bother with them again. They bloomed but what a short bloom period and then they turned into dead little stalks. Not good. When you refer to border Dahlias, are you talking about Unwin's Dwarf? I had great success with those and plan to use them heavily next year in my borders. What a great plant. Long blooming and heavily blooming. Love it.

Angie

Do annuals do better at WSing than perennials? I have so many perennial seeds I've bought for next year, but would like to sow annuals too. Has anyone noticed if either works better? (We live north of Kansas City so our winters are not harsh.)
Cynthia

Wintersowing works best for me when starting perennials. I wouldn't say wintersowing is better for one or the other (annuals or perennials), but I've found if a perennial is hardy in your area, wintersowing will probably work for it, but with annuals it kinda depends on the nature of the plant. And its not so much that I've found annuals it doesn't work with, but some just need that extra time growing in a warm environment (a greenhouse, or under lights inside) to reach a size that will bloom most of the summer. A lot of things wintersow easily, but I start them in the house because I'm too impatient to wait till August to see them bloom. With perennials, most don't bloom till the 2nd year anyway, and the cold spell seems to help so many of them germinate.

Angie, if you let some of your Chinese Forget me not go to seed, you'll probably see volunteer plants next year. While they are an annual, I'm finding them to return reliably. I've also noticed they bloom quickly from seed, the plants that bloomed earlier in the year dropped seed, and those seedlings are blooming now. While I haven't been good about dead heading or shearing back, I've had a continuous show since early summer.

I think trial and error is the best way to go with this.

Border Dahlia for me has been Bishop's Children and Colarette Dandy.

Thank you - I will be mosting sowing perennials since I am buying plants I want to see for years to come. If you don't deadhead, Gemini Sage, don't you get more seeds drop and more plants the next year?

GS: Oh, they certainly went to seed, all right! I didn't prune any of them back until several weeks ago, but the ones I did are reblooming. I will try to find some true Myosotis to sow this year, though.

Angie

hanseycollie, do you mean the Chinese Forget me Not? I do find more plants from one year to the next with those. They're kinda hard to dead head, because the individual blooms are small and born in sprays. By the time the spray of bloom is finished, there are seeds developing, so I just leave them. This year I've had plants at all stages of development throughout the summer.

Angie, I received some Myosotis from another DGr this spring, and they've settled in nicely. They had blooms and seed heads on them when I planted them, and I've notices a few seedlings around them! Hopefully next year I'll have plenty of seed from them to offer.
Neal

Neal: That sounds wonderful and if I'm not successful in locating them this fall, perhaps I can persuade you to share some of your seed next year! You're a dear!

Angie

Angie, I just thought of something- be sure to list Myositis on your want list for the Piggy swap. I don't know if she saved seeds from them or not, but the member I received my plants from is a swap participant (mittsy), and I think there may be a couple of others that grow it too.

Neal: Do we start listing our wants now or wait until the have list starts?

Angie

FYI- Valuseeeds has updated, is up to 9 pages of seeds. Among them are 2 different biennial myostosis.
http://www.valueseeds.com/

Karen

Karen: Thanks. I've checked this site out and added it to my favs.

Angie

Angie, wait till the lists thread goes up, but always a good idea to be thinking of what you'll be looking for, perhaps start a list on paper or your garden journal.

Great tip, Neal. Will do.

Angie

1800+ views of this thread, that's amazing. I just bought some seeds from valueseeds - they came really quick. I think Swallowtailgardens is my favorite - they have given me such great customer service and I like how they package their seeds. My neighbor is going to winter sow with me so we can swap flowers, how fun will that be?

Hansey, sounds like a plan to me! Wish I could convince my neighbor to do the same. She's an excellent gardener and has a great eye for design, but she doesn't tag any of her plants, so maybe it's just as well that she doesn't WS. I wouldn't know what I'm getting. Y'all enjoy!

I read on one post, Angie, about a gal who WSed so much that when it came to planting, she lost track of what was going where and just put them in the ground, LOL, that'll be me (or so I hope!). My neighbor friend has an amazing back yard and she has also never WS, so it'll be fun to do it with her. Her yard is pretty shaded whereas I left a huge area of ours in full sun (no trees) so I hope she can use some of my seeds. She is growing coneflowers in the shade and what WAS pink is now white. Isn't that odd? Cynthia

Well, the plant ghetto that lived on my patio last winter has finally been cleared off and I have resolved to be more restrained, but we'll just have to see if I can stick to it! I have great intentions, don't you know, but when it comes to gardening, I lose all sense of restraint and self-control. I'm a plant junkie!

Angie

Angie, I was looking at my daughter's empty room earlier (she's moved out) and one side of the bed is full of milk jugs, pop bottles, empty deli trays/covers... and I'm thinking to myself, "Is it obsessive when you purchase products just CAUSE you want the container to WS in?" I'd say you and I need deliverance from this obsession, LOL!!!! "Hello, my name is Cynthia, and I'm a plant junkie." Now you say, "Hello Cynthia!" Regards, PJA (Plant Junkies Anonymous)

Hello, Cynthia! My name is Angie and I've been a plant junkie for years! I know the feeling well. I size things up according to whether I can (A) get them in the car; (B) keep them living until I can get them planted; (C) what can I plant around them! I'd say I have a serious, perhaps terminal, case of plant addiction.

Oh, it could be worse, couldn't it? We could be addicted to something really harmful. At least gardening is only harmful to our bank accounts and our backs!

Have fun, PJA Cynthia!

PJA Angie

Hi Cynthia and Angie, My name is Lynn and I desparately need to join PJA.
Last winter was my first year to W/S, and I am so hooked.
Here is a picture of some of my w/s containers.

Another pic, on the heaven forbid, the driveway side, in plain view.

Hello, Lynn. Welcome to PJA! Your stash of WS containers looks so neat. By the end of winter, I had jugs all over the patio in various cardboard boxes and it was a real eyesore, especially as the weather warmed and the boxes started to deteriorate. Just recently got the last of them cleaned off! No self-control whatsoever. Pitiful, I am. But it was such great fun, I'll be right in the midst of it again this year, trying oh, so hard to practice some discipline. I'm already saving plastic containers, though! Have a very nice container which grapes came in, already has holes in bottom and it's deep. How lucky is that? Sam's Club has some wonderful containers.

I must be strong. I must be strong. I must be strong. (LOL)

Angie

Hi Cynthia! You might be talking about me :) I had around 43 containers that sprouted and then took so long to get them in the ground, that I just started putting them in without paying attention to where I was placing the plants. Then later I took pics of the flowers that bloomed, so that I could figure out what I had success with LOL! Can you tell it was my first time WSing?? :)

Isn't so much fun? I, too, ended up just popping things in the ground, without a clue as to what they were. They ended up so pretty, wouldn't have had so many flowers if I hadn't w/s. I even planted a couple of weeds, not knowing what they were.

Here is one flower bed, picture taken in Feb.

Here is the same driveway this summer

Beautiful transformation! Love those dark red Dahlias! Did you widen the bed all the way to the drive?

Oh, my gosh, Lynn. Those dahlias are to die for! Are they from seed? My dahlias I think I am most proud of from my WS efforts. They've done so well. The bed looks great and so do you! I can see your pride shining in your smile!

Angie

Yes, I widened the beds all the way to the driveway and on the other side as well. I kept widening them as I kept planting the hunks of seedlings. I had no idea they would grow so well. I will post another picture showing the calendulas and the 4 o'clocks in the same bed. I am still working on them, the other side of the driveway is not as completed yet. I don't have the energy to dig out all of the sod, so I am putting down cardboard and Tagro on top. Because I wasn't prepared, I had to dig a hole in the sod and plant them, did the cardboard and compost later. I am fighting grass growing back in those spots.

I sure hope that a lot of those plants will reseed.

If you mulch the dahlias heavily, they may live over for you. My dahlias usually make it through the winter for me, but we're not as far north as you. Handsome bed you made there.

Angie

Lynn -- what a beautiful yard!! i'm quite envious... i love wide open spaces to play with.

Thank you very much for the compliment. We're on 5 acres, so lots of room to play (plant). Some of my seeds came from you, tcs from last year's piggy swap. Thanks!!!

my little gh

Gorgeous pics, Lynn! You've done a fabulous job! I did the same thing when I moved here, just made holes in the sod, planted stuff, then went back later with cardboard and mulch. In the spots where I removed a larger circle of sod, I had good luck planting this way, but in some spots the grass has been a real booger to get out of there.

I've had great results from lasagna garden technique. I cover the lawn with cardboard and pile on organic matter, as much as I can gather. This fall I'm doing 2 small new raised beds (4' x8') for tomatos. My husband got the wood, has to screw it together. I've hauled home lots of cardboard from work, have a bale of straw on hand, will also use some grass clippings, leaves when available, yard waste, coffee grounds, whatever I can find. I still need to get a little soil.

Karen

Lynn..... I'm so right with you on this.... this will be my first year to get my act together to ws.... now I'm almost ashamed to say how many containers I'm going to ws..... well ok, today..... it is close to 200. Yes 200 folks.

My plan is to hopefully have enough plants to have a 1 weekend plant sale to make enough money to then be able to have more topsoil brought in..... 70 yards is what I need....LOL I did 40 yards last year to create my raised beds, and this next year I need to restock the beds as well as create new ones. We have nothing but clay soil so everything goes in a raised bed.

I have collected some wonderful and unique perennial seeds that hopefully I'll get a lot of buyers..... at least I know the members from my garden club will come as they can't wait to see what crazy project I'm up to next.... Some of these folks I think live through my experiments... which is fine with me cause I know maybe somewhere down the road they will try something. I did get a lot of them interested in worm castings.....LOL

So my mixture is a seed starting mixture that is sold locally and it does very well for me and isn't too expensive. This year I'm going to add in worm castings to see if when the seeds germinate the benefits from the worm castings will help them grow stronger.

My # one question is since I'm in zone 5, when is the right time to start this? in December or in February? I'm only planting perennials that are hardy in my zone, and that would (had they been plants) winter over in the garden anyway, in hopes of having better success rates.

thanks for any light yall care to send my way. I'm so excited about this. I wanted to start this last year but do to health reasons wasn't able to and now.....

Janet

Janet: Check the germination time for the various seeds. That'll give you some idea how early or late you can WS them. If something takes weeks to germinate, you'll probably need to start it earlier than something that takes, say, 5 days to germinate. Although I have to say, I just sowed my seeds last year and wasn't too scientific or anal about it. Some did well, some didn't, but those that failed were mostly my inexperience. I did keep a table of date sown, seed sown, date of germination, source of seed (e.g., commercial or DG name). It was great fun and I intend to do it again this year.

Wintersowing begins anytime after winter solstice, so Dec. 21. Any time after that is fine for any hardy perennial or hardy annual (i.e. HP or HA to your zone). The only "trick" on sowing time is to wait until close to your spring (late March-early April for me) for more tender ones.

BTW, I've been gardening in clay all my life. My soil is good stuff now, without raised beds. All it took is yearly additions of compost and organic mulches. It has changed from that light tan rock hard stuff to nice black soil.

Karen

Hemophobic and Karen, thanks so much for your input.

I'm thinking maybe to start in March.

Janet

I divided my seeds into tins, labeled to w/s in Feb, March, and the more tenders in April.

Lynn-- you're so organized. I haven't gotten that far yet... i just sorta plug along willy nilly picking seeds to sow... at least now, after the first year, I know NOT to sow the tender annuals so early.