How nice to see a post from you, PM - even if it was inadvertent, LOL.... that was surely an odd nursery - but I find just like catalogs of plants, photos can be deceiving and nursery websites equally so. If you think about it, even shopping for a new house online -- photos are meant to be the very best presentation of what exists -- with plant photos one seldom sees the full plant and you're lucky if you see foliage - it's often just the flower (which could in reality be 1/2" size, LOL)....and we won't talk about reality of color for plant photos... what a huge disparity! I recall stopping at a NE nursery years ago whose website I loved and had ordered mail order from - but I was shocked to find out how truly tiny the place was upon visiting it - and I drove about 2 hours out of my original destination to check it out - you just never know..... Thanks for the best wishes re the pup - I will miss my Chloe forever, but hope to have a new character in the house and to share in August sometime. Wish u the best of health and fun in the garden and rest of your life! Keep checking in with us, please. -cindy

Ken - the key difference between your milk jug and mine is yours needs "bottom heat under lights" in order for the plant to grow, both of which require electricity. Winter sowing is all natural, doesn't cost any more than a bag of growers mix and leaves the growing part to Mother Nature. The added bonus is re-purposing recyclables. Once I set a milk jug with growers mix and seeds out in the snow/cold, Ma Nature is in charge and I'm off the payroll until the seeds germinate and pretty much until they're ready for planting out if it comes to that. There is a post in the winter sowing forum about various ways to prep jugs. I'll try to find & link it. One beauty of winter sowing is, there is really no right or wrong way to prep a container. Containers can be anything that's deep enough, lets in sufficient light & has enough head room for top growth. I use an ice pick to poke drainage holes; others use a box cutter or soldering iron. Whatever works for each individual is fine. The most important thing is drainage so seeds don't rot + enough growers mix for healthy root development. There are some amateur winter sowing videos on YouTube. They'll demonstrate what to do but I'd have to say they're not on a level with Roberts Rules of Order. 'Nuff said. A couple years ago I tried growing ornamental dogwood trees from seeds I harvested at the office where I work. They sprouted and grew at the rate of 12-14 inches per year. A neighbor asked me to grow heirloom apple and pear tree seeds for him from trees he picked from as a boy in upstate Vermont. He gave me 4 apple tree seeds & 10 pear tree seeds in December 2010. I gave hime 4 apple tree seedlings & 10 pear tree seedlings in April 2011 to plant in his orchard. One benefit of winter sowing is amazingly high germination rates. It was not my intent to steal the thread and turn it into a winter sowing testimonial. I just wanted the OP to be aware & consider WS as a USDA-approved way to economically/affordably fill her garden beds with flowering perennials as well as annuals, vines, vegetables, herbs, trees & shrubs. Just today I noticed the potentilla/cinquefoil I winter sowed last year is up...

Looks like geum canadense geum

fascinating! Thanks for the review and additional info, floral and babs! (that's a US/UK gardening reality show waiting to happen isn't it? "Floral and Babs, Garden Detectives" haha) What's so interesting is peren.all's post/suggestion prompted me to review my pictures archive for an unidentified plant I took a picture of about 7 years ago at a SE PA public garden. I'd never known what it was: translation, I'd never known what Kenilworth Ivy looked like! It was growing a shaded, sheltered area, but was growing well. So I know it can be cultivated here in spite of the reputation of not liking heat and humidity; it's even sold by White Flower Farm of all people! So, I also want to try that...unusual looking small scale spreaders is the whole reason I became fascinated by Saxifragas. (Yes, I know those are much more common in maritime climates) OTOH, shining cranesbill? Am tempted to keep it alive even if it does have a weedy invasive rep. It seems like a 'fancy leaf Herb Robert that is less likely to be aggressive'. Because, again, it hasn't grown very fast at all. That pot was sitting on soil all summer. Other more aggressive weeds tend to root right through the holes in the bottom. I actually might have killed off the last Herb Robert this summer, I've been better about staying on top of most weeds this year. They are much less common than in years past. Maybe I should stay ahead of the weeds while I have the chance! I could always pick any flowers off.