First Time WS#9 Stayin' Alive, Stayin Alive.....

I just transplanted the poppies over the weekend that I had winter sowed. They've been out two days and at least are still there and alive so far! I just hope they perk up and I didn't get them out too late.

Melanie

I put my Yvonne's Salvia out today...hope nothing eats them! Direct sowed some more sunflowers seeds to replace the ones that got broke.

I have the whole package here...birds, mice, chipmunks, squirrels, rabbits, raccoons & opossums!! So anything could be eating my babies. Just goes with the territory I guess. Told DH now I know why I did so many seeds of everything that I did!! LOL

I'm a teensy bit OT here because I want to report on my WS results *and* on transplants. I never posted on the other thread because, well, I was still waiting to see if I would actually have any WS results to post. This is my first time with WS.

I had 18 jugs, and 8 had some success ranging from 1 seedling to Chia Pet.

Success:

Digitalis: 2 jugs full of seedlings. The seedlings are perfectly happy where I planted them but haven't grown much.

Strawflower: 2 jugs, 1 seedling each. Seedlings mucho happy in the large container I planted them in. On the other hand, the hundreds of seeds I just dumped in there with them a couple of weeks ago are even happier -- I've got dozens of seedlings there as opposed to just 2 from WS. Hm.

Echinacea: 1 jug, 5-6 seedlings. They're doing OK so far as transplants.

Rudbeckia: 1 jug, 2 seedlings. I only just planted them this weekend because they only came up 2 weeks ago!

Malope: 1 jug/30 seeds, 1 seedling very recently appeared. No action after being transplanted.

Hibiscus mocheutos: 1jug/5 seeds WS, 1 seedling. No action after being transplanted

Big fat failure:

Grape Hyacinth beanvine
Ipomoea alba
Zinnia (several seedlings in March completely vanished by April)
Ratibida columnifera (ditto)
Mirabilis jalapa (ditto)
Astilbe: (ditto)

I guess I'll try again at least one more time, but it was pretty discouraging after reading all the "It's so easy, you won't believe it" posts. For me, it was easy but not very productive! :-(

CrabGrass... some of the "germinated but then vanished" are more tender annuals.... any cold weather could have them bite the dust.

I have learned by failures, that 4-O'clocks, Zinnias and morning glories will keel over if temps dip to low... so i now sow them later in the Spring.

My Mex hats... i only got 1 seedling... not sure what's up with that... though they do direct sow well.

Terese

That's what I was afraid of, tcs, thanks for clearing it up for me. I had a bunch of seeds from the "Seeds for Newbies" program, and I just couldn't find enough information on all the different varieties to know what to WS and what not to.

So you sow your tender annuals indoors in the spring, or outdoors, and if outdoors, do you do it directly in the garden? I don't have room to start seeds indoors, so I'm hoping I could do it outdoors somehow if I want stuff like 4 oclocks and zinnias.

I tend to direct sow them right in the garden. I have found 4-O'clocks dont like to be transplanted.... sometimes i can do it when they are really small, but i also find it almost 'stunts' their growth. ZInnias i have best luck with by direct sowing... i have found the ones sown indoors get too leggy.

my first year, i had no idea what i was doing... but i guess i got lucky and had a lot of germination... though i did lose some plants, including Cosmos and Zins to late frost.

and with the goofy weather we get every year, ya just never know what you're gonna get.

Morning glories... though i did have luck one year WS'ing them... they also do great just popping the seeds right in the ground.

HTH.

Terese

Yes, that helps a lot. I'm keeping notes for future reference, and your experiences just got entered. :-) Thanks so much!

Mary

Here are my first year ws'ing successes and failures:

Successes:
- Oriental Poppies "Princess Victoria Louise" and "Brilliant Red": transplanted to beds when they got their first set of true leaves (transplanted about 20 of them, and I'd say that 15 of them survived.
- Painted daisies: transplanted to cutting garden, and are doing well. I see flower buds on them - I wasn't expecting flowers until next year!
- Leucanthemum "Crazy Daisy" - transplanted to cutting garden, and looking healthy
- Leucanthemum "Alaska" - transplanted to cutting garden, and looking healthy
- Lupine "The Governor" - I only had a few of these germinate, and I transplanted them to my beds, and they are doing fine.
- Lupine "Gallery Pink" - good germination, and they all look really healthy in the garden.
- Larkspur - transplanted about 30 of them when they got their first true set of leaves. Most of them survived; quite a few got chopped down by rabbits.
- Maiden pinks - transplanted to beds, and look good.
- Dianthus siberian blues: transplanted to bed up in the poconos, don't know how they are doing.
- Mathiola incana - transplanted to bed when they got their first set of true leaves, and they look very healthy.
- Geranium "vision violet" - great germination - look really healthy in their beds.
- Geranium "vision pink" - great germination - look really healthy in their beds.
- Digitalis "excelsior" - great germination, but jug looked like chiapet, and I was overwhelmed with my number of transplants, and I added it to our compost pile
- Digitalis "Camelot Rose" - great germination, transplanted to raised bed, and they are getting big.
- Verbascum "Shades of summer" - transplanted some of them to cutting garden, are growing nicely
- Penstemon "Rocky Mountain Blue" - transplanted to hummingbird garden and garden in poconos, looking good at home, don't know about poconos yet.
- Snapdragons - good germination - transplanted to cutting garden - look healthy
- Echinacea "Prairy Splendor" - good germination - transplanted some to cutting garden, and some to poconos, looking good in cutting garden, don't know about poconos yet.
- Zinnia "pinwheel mix" - transplanted to cutting garden, look good.
- Aquilegia "Blue Barlow" - in pots, looking healthy
- Aquilegia "Coral Star" - in hummingbird garden - still pretty small
- Alchemilla mollis - good germination, but teeny tiny - then I got a lot from a trade, and decided to add jug to compost.
- Verbena bonariensis - transplanted to hummingbird garden, looking nice and big.
- Dames Rocket - good germination, but dumped into compost, b/c I read that it was invasive here.
- Zinnia "Bright Border Mix" - transplanted to cutting garden, look good.
- Thyme - in a mixed herb container, and looking nice.
- rosemary - in a mixed herb container, and looking nice.
- sage - in a mixed herb container, and looking big.
- Zinnia "Envy" - great germination, and in my cutting garden looking healthy
- Sempervivum - great germination, and transplanted to beds, still little, but really cute.
- Astilbe "Bella" - germinated well, but still REALLY tiny.
- Sweet Alyssum - germinated well, but they were so cheap at the nurseries, I think that next year I'll just buy them at the nurseries.


Things that didn't germinate for me:
- texas blue bonnet - a bust
- Cypress vine - a bust

Phew, since I transplanted these a while ago, I kind of forgot how much I had wintersown. Since most of them are perennials, I'm anxious to see them next year, when they bloom. I'm a big fan of winter sowing - was a great experience.

Good job - congratulations!!!

Cypress Vine has been duds for me 2 yrs running.

I wont be home for another week to 10 days or so... i'll check my pots, but i dont have high hopes for any... but i do recall the Hostas germinated very late for me.... so those i wont dump til the end of summer.


pgt -- WOW... great job!!

NO way! I had given up on about 20 containers that didn't germinate. Hadn't even been watering them any more. I am busy planting out all my others. Well we had about 4 hours of rain the other night and wouldn't you know it up popped the Cypress Vine and Moon Vine and Lavendar moon vine. How about that.

Are you planning to save your seed? Trade your seeds? Wintersow again next year?

Thought I would just see what you guys are up to.

I still have about 50 containers that didn't germinate (out of 400), I will leave them for another week and than give up.
But I will wintersow next year again. There were a lot of successes and the ones who didn't germinate might not have germinated inside too. Some annuals, like Snapdragon and 4-Oçlocks, germinated too late to get plants this season, so I will sow them indoors next year.
I try to save seeds from all my plants for trading and selling.

Jonna: I don't know how your weather and mine compare, but snapdragons sometimes survive winter for me. Last year I lost most, but the winter before that they all survived. So if you have those snap babies, you might want to plant them out and hope for the best. Maybe, if you leave them in the ground over winter, they will survive to next year. Second year plants are wonderful- bigger, taller, stronger, and longer blooming.

Karen

Thanks for your advise about the snapdragons. Do you protect them in winter, or just leave them as they are?
Jonna

Jonna: I mulch all of my beds with fall leaves. But, honestly, most of it blows away before spring. Snapdragons are just very hardy to cold weather.

This past winter we had several longer periods (days) of below zero temps before we had any snow cover to insulate things. I suspect that's when a lot of the snapdragons were lost. But I do have a LOT of volunteers coming up. This photo shows a patch of volunteers on May 17. Some I transplanted to other spots. They pop up in other beds, too, where I've never planted snaps.

Karen

I'm still trying to keep the stuff that germinated in trays alive long enough to remember what it is and plant it out. I planted out a lot of lupines the other day. I resolved not to WS so much. Then I ordered more seeds!

You and me both, Carrie!

Karen, I never had volunteers of snapdragons. Maybe I must get seed from someone in zone 6 or colder. Where I live is a very small zone 6, the rest of the country is 7 or 8a, so everything I can buy here is not really used to temperatures below zero in winter.

Jim, it's a recurring episode.

I just scatter poppy seeds on a flower bed and they come up and bloom the next spring. I don't know if this still counts as winter sowing though. I don't think they like being fooled with too much.

For all the seeds that I sowed and sprouted not much has survived once planted....kind of bummed!

Sorry to hear that, Nanny. What happened? A late freeze or something? Flood?

Karen

Still haven't planted out all i sowed. I love the jiffy-sow concept, of the trays with plastic lids, but the crap they use for starting mix only holds together if it's totally root-bound.

They just seemed to keep getting ate by critters, drowned/beat up by rain or simply dying. It is a really bad year here with rain every day or two this year.

We're getting rain most every day, too. Today, 94 degrees.

Karen

I lost a lot of seedlings to bugs and slugs this year too, I'd say about 1/4 of my containers. It worked out fine since I started way to much anyway, so I've still been able to plant all the beds I intended to.

Raining today, for example. mosquito bugs are having a party.

I just found this thread. You guys have some great success stories. Poppies wont grow for me either. Even the ones I bought in full bloom died....My soil is very acidic thou.

I didnt WS this year but I had all those failed milk jugs from last winter full of dirt in the shed and I needed soil, so I took all that soil and put it in a long tray to use for other plants and wouldnt you know, I have all kinds of stuff coming up now. I did this in March so maybe they like it better this year? Problem is, I dont have a clue what is what until they flower.
I know one is penstemon and some asters and some cleome. I would conclude that those seeds are very, very viable and can take neglect.

That's great news, jadajoy. Maybe there's still some hope for all my unsprouted jugs too!

I would say so. Gather them up and see what happens.

Joyce, this year's been SO wet up here . . . it really changed what made it and what didn't.

Carrie
Yea, all that spring rain was a little much. It stayed cool here longer than usual too. That might have been a factor.

But do certain seeds grow better when planted later in the year?

Or if planted earlier, just stay dormant till it's their time?

Yes, but I certainly can't tell you which is which! Anita keeps incredible records.

Can't believe all the good successes everyone has had. Even the first year newbies! (I wish I had WSed more perennials again this year so I am lusting after your reports and taking notes on your experiences for next year!)

And I agree, it's true too around here (zone 6) about the tender annuals (i.e., zinnias) that WSing in the fall/winter may be premature for them. It may be more successful to spring plant the seeds in the garden if you aren't pestered by too many critters and weird weather.

Or better for us (because of the wet springs and critters), to plant my tender annual seeds in those plastic covered vegetable containers in May/early June, keep them in a warm spot until they germinate and then set the semi-covered containers out in a protected spot (like under a bush next to the house) 'til a bit bigger. Then transplant into the garden when ready. Kind of a 'spring' version of wintersowing for 'tender annuals'.

This works very well for me, and I have more seedling zinnias, sunflowers, tithonia, clarkia than I can use here this year. Of course, it took me three years of learning a little bit about seed sowing before I figured out the timing for our particular garden.

And one important note for this approach : I did scrutinize the seed packets for varieties that had shorter 'days to bloom' time to be sure that I'll have bloom before the end of our gardening season here. (For instance some sunflowers have a shorter cycle than others).

It is fun to read about all your successes! (And so sorry, didn't mean to go on so long here.) t.

Oh, Tabasco, your list reminded me of what I DIDN'T sow this year but loved last year: clarkia! Darn it!

I didnt really do a good job of keeping my spreadsheet updated but I am beyond pleased with my output. I could have done a better job thining and transplanting in the early stages, but I had as much as I could plant. At first, I was planting only 2 or 3 sprigs of each kind, repotting the rest to share but now I wish I had kept more. On the last of these, Ive been overwhelmed and potting the whole jug.

All in all, my transplants have done beautifully. I think the excessive amount of rain helped with that. it's also hindered me in getting things out earlier, but Ive been getting them out pretty much in the order I sowed them, which was in 4 or 5 groups. I'm down to Herbs now. One of the things that I learned was that I didn't need every kind of Basil, nor does anyone else. its hard to give it away!

Today I found a jug that I thought was empty and been shifting it around to the back but found that it had 3 tiny plants that were smaller than a quarter. maybe half that size actually. But the color was so bright. It was Hypoestes - Confetti Mix. what a surprise.

Congratulations!!! Sounds great!

Some of my plants got a little deformed or stunted I think because I wasn't available to plant them out when they were ready. We had a wedding this spring and it really messed up the timetable. I am hoping some of the perennials will fill in nicer when they come back next year. They look a little straggly this year!

I have some that I put in the ground a month ago and they haven't grown at all.... I am beginning to wonder. Do you think they are OK?

Lissa, what plants have just sat there since you planted them? I have a few perennials that did that the first year, like blue flax- stayed tiny last year, but bloomed beautifully (at full size) this year. For a lot of plants, that old saying is quite true- "first year they sleep, second year they creep, third year they leap".

I am hoping that happens to mine. Only about 50% of my WS containers germinated. Of the ones I planted out the ones that survived are mostly growing really slow and I don't know if they are going to bloom. Of course it could be because of the drought we are having. I don't remember when it rained the last time and it is so dry and brown . It is hardly ever brown and dry in Houston.