That is good to know that March is not too late. I got sick myself last weekend and I was generous enough to share it with my wife. So I was taking care of her last week as she took care of me before that. Fun stuff! Actually, I was doing the laundry this weekend and to my surprise I heard mourning doves! Seems kind of early for them, especially since we 5" of snow on Friday here.

PM2, go ahead and sow both the columbine and the California poppies now. Those columbine seeds will germinate whether you plant them out during the winter or in the spring. Just remember that columbine can be very slow to germinate or very fast. Don't give up on them if they aren't any sprouts in June, or July or even August. I had several containers out and nothing all spring and summer, then low and behold come, Labor day weekend, the seedlings decided to say "hello". They grew very quickly too, much faster than in the spring and I planted them out in early Oct. One good way to plant the columbine seeds is to use an individual container for one plant. make it at least 5-6 inches deep. Then put about 15-20 seeds right in the center of the container. Press the seeds into the soil, but do not cover them with any soil. cover and let mother nature do her thing. When the seedlings are ready to plant, then just take each container and make that one plant. That's how the seeds are sown at nurseries and that's why the plants we buy are so large. They put that many seeds in one container to make one plant. Oh, no need to soak the columbine seeds. The California poppy seeds. I never put them out before mid March at the earliest and have put them out as late as mid April as well. Just sprinkle them on the top of the soil, press them into the soil and do not cover the seeds with any soil. They will germinate just fine and no need to soak them either. Fran

I'm hardening off 4 tomatoes started in Jan - I have about 9 total, so super ready to get rid of some. Will plant them after direct sun is past, put up the supports and cover with agribon19. It's just an experiment, in case the weather goes on like this without great change - if they make it, after only 2 days of hardening off - and cooler weather comes, I'll pop some platicated greenhouse thingy on top..... But I have too many in the house too big - I was experimenting with production under lights - but just had indeterminate, big plants....next winter, I'll buy some special container tiny plants to continue on with the experimenting.... I too need to start some of my main crop tomatoes for summer....so perhaps I will do the winter sowing too....as you all say it isn't too late...

I think what you do will depend on how many seeds you're planning to plant! When I direct sow snaps I just take the dry seed heads and shake them over the mulch where I want more, but there are HUNDREDS of seeds when I'm doing that! Some will come up and some won't--but I definitely don't get hundreds! My mulch is "wearing down" too, so it's not nearly as thick as yours! But I also have snaps, some intentionally sown, some naturally sown, come up in my rock mulch which has landscape fabric right under the rock--as a matter of fact the snaps in the rock mulch when I moved in here is where I got my "original" supply of seed that I now scatter other places! So if you have a "significant" quantity of seed I'd recommend just sprinkling some of it over the mulch and then lightly pat or stir the mulch a bit to be sure some of it falls all the way down to the soil. If you have just a few seeds I think I'd recommend pushing some of the mulch back and then putting the seeds on or close to the soil. I'm not sure, but I don't believe a 3" mulch will interfere with them coming up. I don't grow annual bachelor buttons, so not sure, but from what Cat said I suspect they could be handled the same as snaps. And I don't grow these either, but I'm pretty sure Cosmos could be dealt with the same way! I don't do mixes because when something comes up you don't know if you're looking at a weed or a plant you want! In the past when I did try mixes I had some things come up that I had to grow all summer trying to figure out what they were--and they DID turn out to be weeds! When sowing individual types of seed you can have a pretty good idea what it should look like so you know pretty quickly if the "right" thing is coming up. With perennials you wouldn't usually want a "bunch" of them coming up here and there, so I recommend winter (or summer!) sowing those in separate pots and then planting them where you want them after they've developed a good root system. [When I winter sow, BTW, instead of using big jugs I sow my seeds in individual pots--8 oz. styrofoam cups, so when the roots grow down to the bottom of the pot I can just knock it out and plant it without having to transplant them at some point!] I have a sheet of Colorado Native perennials we compiled when I was at Paulino's, but it's a whole page, single spaced, and I don't have time to retype the whole thing here! If you come to a swap I'm at and want to see it, remind me and I'll bring it along. (I brought all my info sheets along to some of the first swaps but nobody seemed interested so I don't bring them anymore unless I know somebody wants to see one or more!) But is there any particular reason why you're looking for natives? Regarding pollinators, if you just have a nice mix of different flowers (and veggies) so some are blooming all summer you should have lots of bees around. One thing I happen to remember that bees seem to love are the upright sedums like 'Autumn Joy'. When I'd be selling those things it seemed like the flowers were always covered with bees! And my Agastache seems to attract a lot too, tho that could just be because there are SO many flowers! And Agastache is good for attracting hummingbirds too--or any other tubular shaped flowers, especially red or pink--but hummers will go to other colors too once they're in the area. That's all I can think of right now! Hope some of it might be helpful! Skybird