I am doing this in my large urns this winter. I also did last year a small hanging basket. The urns are frozen now and I have a plastic cover on top with a vent hole. It works out just fine. I sowed a lot of seeds (probably too many) Some alyssum in there as well since they will spill over the edge. (I hope) I also plan to add a couple store bought petunia's or something similar because the WS annuals took some time to bloom last summer and my pots were not pretty for a while. Karen

Hi, laagarden, welcome to wintersowing! I'm responding to your questions from here, as well as the other post you made, because everything is tied together. Bookjunky has an answer in here too. Almost all of us wintersowers do at least some annuals in addition to perennials. Given the right growing conditions (sun or shade, enough water), an annual will give flowers the first year. They do need time to get to blooming size. When we buy annuals, many of them are started on January 1st in a greenhouse. So, you can fill your yard with blooming annuals, but you won't have instant color on May 15th unless you buy a few blooming greenhouse annuals to enjoy while your wintersown babies catch up. There are some annuals that bloom nice and early though, they are Larkspur, annual poppies, and Bachelor Buttons (centaurea cyanus). All of these can be purple, blue-purple, or lavender. I think there are orange annual poppies, too. These 3 early annuals are HARDY annuals, meaning that frost doesn't bother them at all. But they'll die after one summer of flowering and making seed, so they're an annual. Larkspur will often sprout right now and slowly grow through the winter. You could sow all 3 of these right now if you wish. Some people wait until the middle of winter to sow poppies, and some wintersow them in containers and plant them out when they're tiny. Some people do sow seeds on the ground and then cover with a mini-greenhouse. It's more typical to use something larger than a jug, but you can do that too. At the bottom of the main WS page, there's a bar for searching. Search for a thread called "winter sowing in situ" which talks about this. Pitimpinai does poppies, I know for sure. Most annuals or tender perennials that we grow are native to tropical areas. They "think" a warm spell means it's spring. They'll sprout, then the warm spell will end and they'll die from the cold. Last year I direct-sowed some annual seeds when it got cold, then we had a late-November warm spell like kcqrna described, and I had 20 4 O'clock seedlings pop up and then die. In any group of seeds, there are ones who sprout at the first sign of good conditions, and some that sprout later. Some people just sow heavily, and rely on the late-sprouters to stay dormant during a warm spell. They will get some sprouts in warm spells that die, but will still get some sprouts in true spring. (however, I didn't have any 4 O'clocks come Spring) A big rule for wintersowing: throw the screw-cap away. You need ventilation. Now you have it! Zinnias are great for easy color, and you can do those in orange or purple or both. They are quite tender. How much sun do you have, what's your soil like, and what heights do you you want? We can recommend some annuals for you, and some perennials in addition to what karendee suggested.

I first learned about astrological gardening back in the early 1970s from author Louise Riotte, who was a ghost writer for Organic Gardening. At that time, I was living in Louisiana. She also was the author of many original book publications. In the back of her early books and original publications, there was a section with her home address and phone number. She welcomed letters and phone calls and loved to talk "gardening". I learned much from her back then and I still reference her books. She was such a darling old lady - home-grown and plain spoken. She was such a character - she almost always had her hair done up in pin-curls and even posted her photo in some of her publications with her hair like that. :) Astrological Gardening: The Ancient Wisdom of Successful Planting & Harvesting by the Stars - Astrological gardening has been practiced for centuries, and author Louise Riotte's 40 years of planetary planting have confirmed its usefulness. She identifies ideal astrological conditions for planting and harvesting a wide range of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs. Here is some information I found about her on the web: Astrological gardening has been practiced for centuries, and author Louise Riotte's 40 years of planetary planting have confirmed its usefulness. She identifies ideal astrological conditions for planting and harvesting a wide range of fruits, vegetables, flowers, and herbs. Author Biography: Beloved Storey author and life-long gardener Louise Riotte passed away in 1998 at the age of 89. She wrote 12 books on gardening, companion planting, and garden lore, among them the ever-popular Carrots Love Tomatoes, which has sold approximately 515,000 copies. Her father taught her to believe in and practice astrology, while her mother was a practicing herbalist. Together they inevitably influenced her life and her books, Roses Love Garlic, Astrological Gardening, Sleeping with a Sunflower, Catfish Ponds & Lily Pads, and her most recent book, Raising Animals by the Moon. Her own line drawings are included in all her books. Before authoring books, Riotte was a ghost writer for Simon & Schuster and for Jerry Baker's radio gardening show, and she wrote a number of articles for Organic Gardening as well. Riotte took pride in her garden near her home in Ardmore, Oklahoma, which her son Eugene helped care for in her later years. She also wrote: The Complete Guide to Growing Berries and Grapes; Success with Small Food Gardens; Grow the Best Grapes Grow the Best Strawberries: Storey Country Wisdom Bulletin A-190 Planetary Gardening: A Guide to Organic Gardening by the Signs of the Zodiac and probably more that I don't even know about. Below is a LINK to a website that pays Tribute to Louise. I hope you will buy her books and treasure them as much as I do mine. ~Annie Here is a link that might be useful: Gardening by Astrology

there is nothing that flowers this spring.. that probably has mature seeds ... i think you are looking too early ... though you should have seen immature white nodules .... many cultivars carry a patent ... and the fee is paid on the sale of the seed .... it would be highly shady for anyone to pay the royalty.. and then not brag about such.. by using the name ... but this might be an older strain .. that the patent fell off of ... and the newer on.. an IMPROVED variety ... take the latin... and add propagation ... to see how and when to take cuttings to try growing indoors ... when i do this... i start such in early fall ... hoping to get a rooted plant growing out in shade in a pot ..... BEFORE i have to take them indoors ... perhaps i can take more cuttings before frost .. if the first wave fails ... ken