I'll add my voice to the suggestion of winter sowing if you have the opportunity. I designed, planned, and dug my garden beds in 2007. In 2009 I discovered winter sowing. I grew perennials & shrubs (from seed) and started planting out in 2010. My garden beds were filled in 2011. It's fast, inexpensive and just about the most garden fun you can have in winter. I supplemented my winter sown perennials with a few nursery-grown plants that offered either color or textural contrasts. I've let go of biennials and prefer perennials that perform year after year so all I have to do is enjoy them. The link below takes you to the home page of Wintersown.org. There's very little recent activity on the GardenWeb Winter Sowing forum. Check out the GW Seed Exchange for seeds. Buy a few bags of good potting soil now and start sowing seeds in mid December. Oh, yeah. If you're serious about winter sowing, buy your growers mix NOW. Picture someone trying to thaw a frozen 3 cu. ft. bale of growers mix with a hair dryer. And yes, botanical (Latin) plant names will help you avoid mistakes/confusion. Here is a link that might be useful: Wintersown.org website

I don't think it's too late to start seed as long as they can germinate in a shady spot with adequate moisture. Now would be better than the fall...it will take some time for them to get big enough to get in the ground and they can be developing a good root system over the winter for next spring. That's my opinion. Hope this helps.

I have taken rose canes, a few inches from the tip, knicked them and burried them w/ a brick or good sized rock to hold tehm down. Wait several weeks, then tug gently, if it holds, there are roots. Leave it another month then dig it up, cut from main stem and pot on or plant in ground. I also, put my climber tips in under other pots for winter and have several new ones in the spring. I have taken dormant rose cuttings and rooted them in water over winter. Took a long time to root. I now have two pots of 2 kinds of roses,one a pink climber & the other a single petal white, very healthy. Last winter I kept them in my cold basement stairway because they were so young. Both are doing fine now. Vangy likes to play in the dirt

I have attempted to allow all to come and speak civily. If I have done nothing else. Yes I can send out what I recieve and I can even take from everyone else the information they give because it dose make for my benefit as well as dose my information for some. If I held every answer in the book I would not have come to this forum or to any other forum to ask questions or to simply make a statement of my experiance, be it with tomatoes or with a tree. As to those un named who simply can not see past thier own actions in conversations. I post for those who want to try and work as a community here through the true exchange of ideas not through arrogance . that hostility towards new or old ideas and methods makes any thread of knowledge mute to others. I have seen over my fifty years thousands of crops and gardens lost to blights late freezes or other factors including droughts. so Is it a gamble every year you plant? you bet ya. but as gardeners and farmers we go out every year and plant our gardens and fields. and we wait and we harvest from our toils. Is my way the only way out there as we can plainly see it is not. dose it make me a better gardener or farmer if I make no effort to allow others to give to me knowledge of some kind towards a different idea in gardening no it dose not. But to jump up and treat people the way I have been treated by some in this post may amuse some but with it comes the loss to others who really are thirsting for knowledge. to that end for those who really want a civil conversation please feel free to have one. and please do use the almanac to get if not just the basics for those new to gardening but to those here who truely have the ability to give thier views with out malice. because the only thing I learned from most of you here is you have grown too set in your ways to let in information even if it was just part of what was given in total. I was asked to introduce my self several times and did so including where i live and my experiances including in many of the areas of you here in this post. but instead I recieve a continual out pouring of arrogance from those just wanting to see just how far they can push some one. I can bark back or I can set back and listen to ideas and pick up some new methods including those that may infact make me wonder. If the way you grow your crop works for you by all means share it. it may make some one else actually have a crop or garden that has exceptional yields we as gardeners and farmers pray for three things an early spring with out a freeze, plenty of water, and a great harvest season- long and fruitful. We as a group need to stop the nonsence and try to reach for those goals instead.