You can sow them outdoors in covered containers right now -it is a method called wintersowing - I have been doing it since January - no need to try and find places in the house and chase the sun and it works GREAT - many gardeners in your zone are planting right out in the garden now with wintersown hardy annuals. There is a forum here on GW devoted to it. Read the FAQ first to get an idea of what we are talking about - then ask all the questions you want - these are very helpful gardeners and eager to share - it will change your whole way of thinking.... Lynne Here is a link that might be useful: WinterSowing

Hi Kriskin, welcome to the forum. I'm not sure how European hardiness zones relate to U.S. zones. But if those you mentioned are not reliably hardy in your zone they might be damaged by late frost if they sprout early. However, I sowed verbena bonariensis in the dead of winter and it thrived. It even overwintered fine in my zone 6 yard though it's only supposed to be hardy to zone 7. I think you'd be safe with that one any time. I think the others would be too, though I'm not sure. Lavenders and agastache families generally like very well drained soil. So if your garden soil doesn't drain well you might want to ammend it to improve drainage. Generally speaking, winter is a fine time to sow anything that's hardy in your zone or that reseeds well there. But no seeds are damaged by freezing weather, keep that in mind. The only risk is if they sprout in an early warm period, then they can be damaged when cold weather returns. Again, that's only for frost tender things. Hardy annual and hardy perennial seedlings are fine at sub-freezing temps. Karen

I am in zone 5a, and I usually start my tender annuals in mid-April. They sprout so quickly! I throw a row cover or blanket over the containers if temps dip into the low 30s/upper 20s. Also, I ring my sprouted tender annual containers with my perennial/hardy annual containers to create a little bit of extra insulation from cold nights. At ellenr--I believe if you go to weather.com, there is a feature to look at historical weather data. If you plug in your zip code then scroll down a bit, there is a heading on the right titled "Today's Averages and Records." Just a little beneath that heading is a link titled "Historical Data." Click that link, and you can look at average, daily temps for your area. This might help! cheers, Norabelle

Thanks Gardenluv. I guess I sort of figured that. I am just one of those people that always second guesses myself and find things to worry about. I was hoping to shorten the learning curve because I have this ridiculous fear of making a mistake - even if it isn't a terribly costly one or doesn't have severe consequences. Guess the only thing to do is fall back on the good old scientific method. Maybe I'll stagger my winter sow dates a week or so apart - see what happens. I have plenty of space, and likely plenty of seedlings - I'll try some one way, and some another, and do a side by side comparison. Eventually I'll have my own system, know what to repeat, what not to repeat. This is my third year, last year I tweaked a bit, did a couple things completely differently, and had better results than the first year. I've made a few changes for this season, and hopefully will have better results than the 2nd season. I guess that's not such a bad plan. My marigolds germinated, I have my first WS sprouts - so I guess I'm doing something right enough, or it really is just so easy that it's hard to mess up. Of course, I am still worrying about the marigold sprouts - will I have to thin (I hate to do that, it feels like I'm wasting something, then I have overcrowding issues), will I have to separate for spacing, can that even be done without damaging roots, can they wait two weeks to be planted, is my soil bed deep enough, will they be ok while I'm away. If anything else sprouts I'll be in real trouble, I won't know what to worry about first. I suppose it just wouldn't feel normal if I wasn't needlessly worrying about something insignificant. Thanks again, Sherri