NEWBIE/WINTER SOWING SEED LIST 2007-2008 From Bakemom, Columbus, Ohio Zone 5/6 kcmccoyesq@aol.com All plants are open pollinated and many contain chaff. Most come from my garden and are harvested from my best performers. Many of these seeds are from winter sown plants. I encourage you to do your own research before you sow these seeds to make sure you have the correct conditions and that the plants are not invasive or undesirable in your area. Many are cottage type plants that might not be suitable for formal gardens the key is research, research, research. Please feel free to email with questions. 1. Agastache foeniculum/Anise Hyssop Â(ag-ah-STACK-ee), hardy perennial also known as licorice mint with both white and purple blooms, heavy re-seeder, lovely scent, butterfly and bee magnet, full to part sun , 3-5 feet, prune to control reseeding from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 2. Alyssum/Basket of Gold- perennial, full sun, second year blooms, good for edging, tolerates heat, clay and dry soil, early brilliant yellow flowers  from BakemomÂs garden. 3. Amsonia Blue Star  nice little perennial with blue stars in May/June, second year bloomer, somewhat rare, about 18 inches tall with willow like foliage  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 4. Aquilegia/Columbine Mix  (ak-wil-EE-jee-uh), open pollinated biennial/perennial, pink, purple, white, doubles and singles, sun and shade  from BakemomÂs direct sowing garden - Not this year 5. Calendula officinalis//Pot Marigold  (ka-LEND-yew-luh), nice reseeding annual that is a staple for cottage borders, full to part sun, various bloom sizes, various centers, 1-2 feet  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. Not this year 6. Centaurea cyanus/mix  (sen-TAW-ree-uh), annual bachelor button, jewel like blooms in early spring and then re-bloom from fallen seeds, plant en masse, winter sowers, re-seeds, great cottage garden plant, full sun, drought tolerant  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 7. Centaurea dealbata/Persian Cornflower  perennial, first year bloomer, full sun, pink furry blooms, drought tolerant, re-seeds, bees and butterflies love it  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden . Not much this year 8. Coreopsis/Tickseed  This is a perennial mix of the hardy versions of coreopsis. They are drought tolerant and donÂt seem to re-seed much around here. Whack the June blooms back for a re-flush or two. This is a staple for a sun garden and the seeds are fun to gather  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 9. Dianthus barbatus/Sweet William MixÂ(dye-AN-thus), biennial, full sun, 18 inches, multiple colors, self seeder  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. From RemyÂs Garden.. 10. Echinacea purpurea/Purple Coneflower/Magnus  hardy perennial, full sun, second year blooms, a classic perennial, great for bees, butterflies, and finches, cut back for second flush of blooms  from BakemomÂs winter sown gardens. 11. Eryngium/Sea Holly  resembles an ice blue thistle and is such an unusual addition to your drought full sun garden. These guys are a little sticky, but well worth it. They summer sow beautifully and I would recommend late winter sowing them. You will love this perennial/sometimes annual.  From BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 12. Eupatorium/Joe Pye Weed  this is an awesome edge of woodland perennial that is an Ohio native. It resembles Autumn Joy Sedum when itÂs in full bloom, but itÂs clearly not a succulent. It can grow 5-6 feet tall around here, but with some shade and some harsher conditions, itÂs 3-4 feet in my backyard. This is a fabulous plant. It winter sows beautifully and pots up with little to no fuss. Do a little research and you will fall in love  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. My gaillardia last about 4 years. They are worth the re-sowing and will always be a staple in my drought garden. 13. Gaillardia/Blanket Flower  (gah-LAR-dee-uh), short lived bi-color perennial, first year blooms, drought tolerant  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 14. Gaillardia grandiflora/Burgundy  short lived perennial, full sun, second year blooms, drought tolerant, yellow eye, blooms all summer well into fall  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. Not this year 15. Gaillardia/Golden - short lived perennial, full sun, second year yellow sunny blooms, drought tolerant, blooms all season, cut back to control flop  from BakemomÂs spring sown garden. Not this year Helenium have weedy feet. The blooms are awesome. Plan to have something shorter in front of them. You will love this plant. 16. Helenium/HelenÂs Mix  nice perennial with blooms in yellow, orange and red  some bicolor, full sun and give it space to clump  from BakemomÂs garden 17. Heliopsis/Lorraine Sunshine  variegated perennial with lovely single flowers, blooms all summer long, reseeds and about half are variegated, 3-5 feet tall, full to part sun  from BakemomÂs garden. 18. Heliopsis/Summer Sun  perennial, full sun, cheerful yellow double blooms 3-4 feet tall, middle of border plant  from BakemomÂs garden. 19. Hollyhocks- Alcea/black  (al-SEE-uh), very dark purple looking nearly black, very dramatic perennial  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 20. Hollyhock/single Burgundy  a nice big perennial with grape jelly colored blooms - from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 21. Impatiens Balsam  (im-PAY-shens), beautiful reseeding annual, full to part sun, fun to collect seeds, all colors and some spotted, a must-have for the cottage garden  from BakemomÂs winter sown and direct sown garden. Not this year 22. Knautia macedonica mix  (NAW-tee-uh), perennial, full sun, second year bloomer, burgundy, pink, hot pink, light pink, tolerates clay and dry conditions, cut back spent blooms in late June for re-bloom from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 23. Larkspur Mix/Consolida regalis  (kon-SOL-i-duh), re-seeding annual in mostly purple, some white, pink, blue and bi-color white with blue tips, both tall and short, nice cottage and wildflower, June bloomer, drought tolerant  from BakemomÂs winter sown and direct sown garden. 24. Lunaria/Money Plant/Honesty Mix  biennial second year annual, part sun, edge of woodland plant, mostly purple, variegated, and some white  from BakemomÂs winter sown and direct sown garden. 25. Lychnis/Rose Campion  (LICK-niss), biennial, drought tolerant, full to part sun, carefree reseeder  from BakemomÂs direct sown garden. 26. Lychnis/White Campion - (LICK-niss), probably biennial, second year blooms, drought tolerant, full to part sun, some have pink throats  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 27. Malva/Pink Lance Leaf  perennial reseeder, full sun, nice cottage garden plant, single blooms late spring to early summer  from BakemomÂs garden. 28. Nigella damascena/Love in a Mist  reseeding annual, full to part sun, nice edging plant, I canÂt say enough good things about this plants, pods are nice dried, could be blue, white, maybe some pink, itÂs all good, heirloom flower good for filling in gaps in the front of the border  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 29. Penstemon Husker Red  perennial, lovely red foliage with white flowers that bloom in June, prefers part sun  from BakemomÂs garden. 30. Poppy Mix  full sun reseeding annual, best winter sown and early plant out in hunk of seedlings, singles, doubles, who knows whatÂs in this mix?, about 2 feet tall and just beautiful  From FarmerbellÂs Grden 31. Ratibida/Mexican Hat  perennial, full sun, first year blooms, nice wildflower and interesting cone, drought tolerant, native Midwestern wildflower  from BakemomÂs winter sown gardens. 32. Ratibida columnifera/yellow coneflower  similar to Mexican hat, but smaller, more delicate blooms with solid yellow petals, drought tolerant, full sun, native prairie wildflower  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. All my Rudbeckias contain chaff. I donÂt have time to clean them completely, but I do some loose cleaning. The seeds in Rudbeckia are the short gray/black pegs which settle to the bottom of the bag. In my experience, chaff doesnÂt cause any problems whatsoever. It doesnÂt in nature, why should it here? 33. Rudbeckia Laciniata  (rood-BEK-ee-uh), perennial outhouse flower 6-7 feet tall, full sun, lemon blooms with green eyes, lance leaf back of the border plant  from BakemomÂs garden. 34. Rudbeckia Clasping coneflower  (rood-BEK-ee-uh), annual re-seeder, sun, about 18-24 inches, cute little blooms  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 35. Saponaria/Bouncing Bet  this is a fun perennial that re-seeds and sends out runners, so provide a little drought or poor soil to tame it. It looks like a cross between Sweet William and Phlox and blooms in July with pink flowers. From BakemomÂs garden. 36. Scabiosa/cream  (skab-ee-OH-suh), perennial with tall airy cream pincushion blooms, very dainty  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden. 37. St. JohnÂs Wort  fabulous shrub with beautiful yellow flowers. This is one to plant in a group of 3-5 for maximum WOW. They winter sow beautifully and are care-free. I winter sowed some in 2006 and the results were wonderful. Try a shrub  try this one - from BakemomÂs garden. 38. Stachys officinalis/Wood Betony  hardy perennial, shade, lovely purple blooms on a stick in late summer, relative of lambÂs ears  from BakemomÂs direct sown and winter sown garden. 39. Succisa pratensis  perennial that resembles Scabiosa, 6 inches tall with 8 inch spread, this blooms in late summer/early fall with large light purple Scabiosa- like blooms, they winter sow like champs!!!  from BakemomÂs garden. 40. Verbena bonariensis/Verbena on a Stick  (ver-BEE-nuh), nice re-seeding annual with pom-pom like purple blooms on long thin stalks, full sun, middle of the border, re-seeds, drought tolerant  from BakemomÂs winter sown garden.

Okay, wow, a new septic system sure did a lot of landscaping damage! My gosh, you need a completely new yard :-) Not having the ability to water where you live is going to make any new landscaping not really worthwhile in my opinion. Frankly, if I were you, I would make the investment in a landscaping plan, first. Then, save your money to get the sprinkling system repaired, and installed based on the landscaping plan, so you get water in the right amounts to the right places. If you start out with an organized plan for new landscaping, you'll end up saving yourself a ton of unnecessary work, headaches and extra expenses. You can see if your local Master Gardeners might help you out with a landscaping plan, or possibly your local college that has a Landscape Architecture program, and see if a student needs a project? And composting always makes sense! There are so many good books on basic composting out there, and we've got a very active Composting Forum on the GardenWeb, too. Read up on how to compost, and check out the Composting Forum, where they can give you some specific pointers. But, in a very boiled down nutshell, you want to compost both green and brown materials together (you will need more brown materials, as what you've mentioned so far all fall into the "green" category), avoid dog, cat & human waste, plus no bones, grease or fat (not really an issue for you based on your diet) or diseased plants, and keep the compost pile moist and turned a few times. You might want to conside building a 2 or 3 part composting bin, so you can work 2 to 3 piles at once. One the first bin is full, you can start adding to the second bin. Once your first pile is completely composted, you can spread the compost, but I would wait until you've got your landscaping done, and top-dress you new plants with your compost. Otherwise, you're just going to end up with nuclear weeds :-) For now, keep things weeded. You can try to lay down landscaping cloth to help keep the weeds down in the particularly troublesome areas. Don't lay down black plastic. Yes, it will kill the weeds, but it will also kill your valuable soil microorganisms. So, just landscaping cloth and maybe some mulch or large rocks to hold it down to keep the weeds at bay. Patty S.

Claire, I am not sure I've ever heard the term cute associated with starlings . . . ;>) Jane, that series of robin photos is absolutely stunning. I am always interested in the content of photos, but this month there have been a bunch of really lovely photos as far as composition and clarity. I'll submit some photos which are a bit more basic than artistic. I'm not sure how Claire gets such stunning turkey photos. Ours are very wily, and if I open a window or door to take a photo, they jog off in the opposite direction to the nearest shelter. So mine are taken from inside the house, and often through a combination of screen and glass. During the recent snowstorm, our local flock scooted across the road and down into the cornfield. I managed to catch a couple of photos before they disappeared into the evergreens to find shelter. They were moving much faster than usual; definitely looked unhappy about the weather. Arriving down the access drive into the field: From Turkeys in the snow December 27, 2012 And halfway across, scuttling rapidly towards shelter: From Turkeys in the snow December 27, 2012

Question 1 - I was really blown away by how deep and big the taproot is growing on these trees. It's like most of the energy is going to create this big root. It's thicker than the trunks in every case, and the roots are easily twice to sometimes 3x as long as the seedling itself. So on on of them, I cut back the taproot a little bit... I took about a half an inch. I had read Al mentioning that slowly cutting back a taproot over time can help spur the tree to grow more roots higher up. I hope I didn't take it out of context. The first day the lowest leaf of that seedling, which has started to go brown on the rim, became pale and collapsed on one side of the leaf. Then yesterday it went dry. Today there has been no further progress of the leaf's collapse and no further signs of stress. The seedling seems strong... Was I wrong to try and trim it back just a little bit? Or did I do alright? Is this seedling out of the woods for now do you think? Young plants are nearly all dynamic mass, and as such, have a very strong "will to live". If your plant is currently doing well, there is no reason it will take a turn unless something cultural forces a change in course. Bonsai practitioners have learned that lifting seedlings as soon as the first set of true leaves emerge and removing the seed radicle immediately below the root to shoot transition zone and treating the top as a cutting eliminated taproot issues entirely in most plants. In stubborn plants with a hard tendency toward vertical roots, you'll need to regularly remove all first order roots (attached to main stem) growing downward from the root to shoot transition zone as well as all second order roots growing up or down off the first order roots. Question 2 - related to question 1, regarding the other seedling I root pruned a little. This one I took a little more off of because of root rot. I know I had to take it off, and I also took off a bit of taproot for this one too. The seedling itself seems fine. The uppermost leaf - which is fairly new and thin yet - went limp the first day, but has become stronger and greener these last two days. I know I had to take off the bad roots, but I was worried I went too far. I'm hoping I'm seeing indications that I didn't? Only way to tell is by putting a waiting period behind you during which the plant retains its turgidity throughout the daylight hours. Stomata close at night and slow water loss, so unhealthy plants have opportunity to recover from low internal water pressure and wilting. No wilt during the day is a good indication to bet on full recovery. Question 3 - When I was done, I investigated the 5 'dead' seedlings. Two of them looked like some of Al's bare-root pictures. The main part of the taproot was healthy, seemed alive, and had small alive roots still growing from it. but the end of the root was truncated in mush, much of which fell off into the soil. I washed them as clean as I could in a mist spray and cut off the mushy end to clean root. Then I potted those in 5:1:1 too. I'm hoping against hope that I might be able to save them. The top id dead back to the twiggy stump... Any thoughts if they might come back? Anything special I might do for them to give them the best shot - for instance a special fertilizer or watering strategy? Withhold fertilizer until the plant recovers. DAMP or MOIST are the operative words. If the fungal infection has gummed up the plumbing such that a vascular connection between roots and shoots isn't in the offing, it's a goner. If the infection isn't systemic, the possibility of retaining viability is still on the table. What kills cuttings is the inability to make that plumbing connection due to rot, or the cutting having an inadequate energy reserve. If the plant/cutting/seedling runs out of reserve energy while it still a net user of energy instead of a net producer of energy, it's over. 4: I have 5 I have not yet repotted. They seem to be okay... though 3 aren't doing much of anything, they're just existing and may have some first sign of browning on lowest leaves, but I might be looking too hard too... One is finishing it's fall flush of leaves, and one is start starting it's fall flush... I'm not sure if I should repot them so close to winter or if I should let them be until spring, since they seem okay right now. I especially am not sure I should mess with the one putting out new leaves. But on the other hand, what if I really am seeing some warning signs and some suddenly start taking a down turn in the next week or month? Wouldn't it be better to do it early, now, rather than later? The only reason I re-potted the ones I did was because I was sure they wouldn't make it through winter... I am not sure on these ones. If they were your plants, what would you do? A dearth of mobile nutrients, over-watering, root congestion, soil compaction, can all lead to loss of lower leaves. I'll ask you to spare me from having to do the research by telling me if these plants would normally enter a predictive dormancy during the fall to winter transition? If yes, then waiot until spring but guard against over-watering. If no, repot only if you suspect strongly that the plants will no longer be viable come late spring (June). 5: Fungus gnats. =( I manage to get rid of them for a while, but they always come back. Of course, I was always using compost mixes, particularly organic ones, and they're usually lousy with them no matter how much a brand claims they pasteurize/sterilize for pests. Do non-mineral soil media mixes have the same ability to attract and support these and other soil-borne pests? If yes, which ones to watch for? If you don't already have a good understanding of what constitutes the comparative degrees of container media (as in unusable, practically unusable, just plain poor, ok, better, and the variations of better from 'sort of better' to 'really a whole lot better'), making that a priority will almost certainly propel your advancement farther/faster than anything else you might apply yourself to in the near term. If you need the info that can tie soils up into a neat little conceptualization, I'll be really glad to help, but I think trying to do it in a thread that covers so many topics isn't the best format. Are you familiar with and understand the concept discussed here? Which brings my follow-up: If it can support pests that spent part or all of their life cycle in soil, then it should be able to support their predators too, right? I prefer to combat pests with their predators, like nematodes, predatory mites, aphid lions, etc. Would this be doable if needed? How about we work toward providing a home for roots that doesn't provide creature comforts? In the immediate, mosquito dunks and a restrained hand on the watering can are potential remedies. 6: For the future of these little babies of mine, what would a good strategy be for keeping them happy growing in a container? You'll find an outline here that will provide a plan for maintaining woody material in containers and in good health indefinitely. I know I need to keep them smaller than if they were in the landscape, and that means eventually removing the taproot. I also understand that taproot removal usually starts after a year. But these trees don't actually seem to have much besides taproot... smaller roots branch off of it, and a few have some smaller roots that come from the trunk matrix but not most from what I've seen. Would the best bet be to gradually prune the tap root back over a few years in an attempt to get the trees to put out more roots higher up? Or should I go for broke and just cut it way back and defoliate? Or is it possible that the poor media I have been growing in so far as not encouraged growth at the higher and mid root range and drove the roots downwards looking for air? I'm sorry I haven't taken any pictures to share to give you a better idea. If I end up re-potting any of the others, I will take some. I think I covered these questions above, but if not, ask again. Al