Also, depending on where you have them planted, cutting them back keeps them within the area you have alloted them. I didn't cut back the 'Issai' enough last winter, and it is definitely overgrowing its neighbors!! I believed the tag, which said dwarf, 4'x4', and the seller, who assured me it would be small (well, maybe she said smaller than the species, but I thought the species was dichotoma, growing to 5'. I think it's a selection of Callicapa bodneri instead, which grows to 10'.), so I assumed the mature height and width would be under 4'. It was approximately that the first year. It's actually now about 6' tall and 8' wide - I moved neighbors last summer and have to move more this winter!!! It is gorgeous right now, so I can forgive it. But, I may still plant one of the babies where there's more room, and I may dig the mother plant up instead of its neighbors, and see if it, too can be moved to a more open area. If it dies, I'll still have the baby to grow up.

Froggy, you have me worried now that 1/2 acre of seeded prairie is "slip slidin away!! I went outside and dug down in the snow/ice and found my seed/sawdust layer. It is now very close to the frozen soil, but still in a layer of compacted snow/ice. I would hate to see it fail as it was a very good mix with about 60 forbs. I collected/processed at lot of the seed myself which is a big investment of time (although it is fun). I also bought about $300 of seed. I have not given up hope yet. Maybe it will depend on what kind of thaw we get in the late winter/spring. I am hoping for a gradual thaw where some of my seed will stick to the soil, as opposed to a big thaw that causes my seed to take a ride down the hill. I will report back next summer when I have some results.

Its really a matter of your own personal preference, time & space issues, the condition of your planting area and many other factors that vary. People who are loyal devotees to the WS method swear by it and won't use any method except that one for all types of seed. They collect & store lots of jugs, buy lots of potting soil and use this method even for seeds which only require warm moist conditions and which germinate easily in a week or 14 days. Then they typically wait to sow in December (often on the solstice) but never before that. Thats perfectly fine but its sort of a made up law on that forum. Other people prefer to sow the 'needs warm/moist only' seeds directly in spring or sow indoors to get an early start on plants and use the WS method only for the ones needing cold. Personally, that makes sense to me while WS'ing those does not so that is what I do. I always sow hardy annuals in late summer to early fall. They come up, put in time for good root growth and then spend winter as green rosettes ready to take off much earlier in spring than if I'd waited or WS'd them. Tender annuals OTH are sown in spring. Shrubs and some other native seeds need a warm period followed by cold followed by warm so fall is the best time, especially if you are unsure about conditions necessary to break dormancy, some seeds have several 'locks' on dormancy to protect them from germinating at the wrong time so these conditions must be met. Many seeds naturally drop to the ground during fall. If you wait too long into fall, you won't find seeds to collect from some plants as next years seeds are already naturally sown. Some seeds need soaking and scarification. The point is, there is no single one size fits all answer as the only best way to sow seeds in general. WS'ing is a good method generally speaking, but not always. I've had some types of seeds rot doing that while others do fine. It also depends on which part of the country you live in, up north they stay frozen and have snow most of the winter, here in Oklahoma we do not. Echinacea is an easy one so choose whatever appeals to you. I personally do all the types of sowing mentioned above, it depends on the type of seed and which is the most efficient method.

Amy, I often grow shorter, earlier plants in between brussels sprouts and collards plants and pull them out as they mature....the type depends on whether it is spring or fall, but you can use leaf lettuce, spinach, etc. Or even small cool-season flowers like violas and pansies. You can leave the flowers as a flowering (with edible flowers!) living mulch but I gradually harvest all the leaf lettuce and spinach before the b.s. or cauliflower plants get too large and start invading their space. The shorter kinds of nasturtiums work well for this too. I love all the purple veggies and have the seeds of a ton of them already. I just never really thought about sort of making purple a focus and planting them all together as much as possible, but you can bet I am thinking about it now. Some places have mixed kale where you can get 4 or 5 or 6 kale varieties in one seed packet and usually several of those have reddish or purplish coloring. Mustards can be used to add lots of color. I like Osaka Purple, but I think the prettiest mustard plants I've ever grown were Ruby Streaks and Golden Streaks with the color of each one playing off the other. stockergal and sandplum, It is too easy to dream of a fall garden in the midst of cool, wet early June weather, but a lot of summers, by the time July rolls around, the heat (in the garden and in the kitchen canning) is killing me and I lose my enthuiasm for a fall garden. What kills the enthusiasm even more quickly is snakes! If the garden is too snake-infested, I largely stay out of it for a few weeks, venturing in only to harvest. Still, even if I don't do a whole fall garden, I try to single out at least one raised bed (the long ones are about 40' long by 4' wide) and replant it with stuff for fall. I start with fall tomato plants in latest June or earliest July and expand from there. Much also depends on space available. Sometimes a lot of hot season crops are still producing well and I won't yank them out to replace them with fall plants. I just work around them as I can. The nice thing about planting the fall garden is that I can slip out there early in the morning, plant, and water. Since Tim's alarm clock wakes me up at 4 a.m., I'm always up before the sun, have my indoor stuff done and can run out to the garden at first light, which often is the coolest part of a summer day here. Then, for a few weeks, all you really have to do is weed and water as the seeds spout and grow or the transplants settle in and grow. That makes it more bearable to me....just trying to get them going in the heat is hard enough some years. In the fall the weeds can be challenging, but a lot of mulch used early when the plants are very small can help with that. Sometimes I plant the fall garden really late and then cross my fingers and just hope it all works out. Or, if the thought of a fall garden in the ground is too daunting, you could plant a few favorite things in large containers. That pretty much eliminates the weeding issue, and often the snake issue as well, especially if I drape bird netting over the newly planted containers to keep the snakes out. We accidentally trap a lot of snakes in bird netting every year, but I don't mind. I'd rather find a copperhead in bird netting, as I did less than 3 hours ago, than find it striking at me in a garden pathway or something. It is shocking how many venomous snakes we catch in bird netting in the garden. If I'm going to find them in the garden, that's the best way to find them as long as I'm not holding the bird netting in my hand at the time. Mary, I can stay out of brick-and-mortar stores pretty easily, but when it rains all day, I am prone to shop online. This week, I made a firm vow to stay off the seed company websites so I wouldn't order a lot of seeds, and I kept that vow. Instead, I went to canning supply websites and bought canning supplies. It is easier than going from store to store looking for some of the more obscure items. Dawn