Hi Heather, I am across the lake in Vt. and having the same problem. Nothing is happening with my WS petunia,sweeet wiliam,sunflower,delphenium,lockspur,columbine, so you are not alone. I guess e'll just have to be patient. Love the pic of Jiji; looks just like our Raven. Ellie

That is good to hear Ellie. I just needed to hear that others were also not having germination on things that should have already. This is my third year at it and it has just been so different compared to the other two.

I would say this year was as good or better for me-I still have plenty of non germinating containers but they are justifiable- clematis, polygonatums, arums, etc- plants that normally I would not expect to germinate this cycle anyway. I even got good germination on astrantia which was always iffy for me.
I did only one agastache apricot sprite late April and had excellent germination. Majority of columbines were done as experiment with GA-3 and did excellent/ inside/ no need for cold. I did couple of columbines WS- viridiflora, jonesii, woodside variegata and they all did fine.
Penstemon smallii did great- started early April.
My experience shows me that only toughies or mulitcyle germinators do well when planted very early. Those seeds that do not need cold stratification do not benefit from early sowing. I start foxglove in late March- early April and have it germinating in couple of days.
It could be dependent on my particular climate and that many seeds manage to rot if planted too early due to my technic.

I had less germination this year than past years - between 70-75% at a rough guess, maybe a little less. Some "sure things" weren't at all (especially annuals, like marigolds, cosmos, zinnias, etc.). Some new things I expected to be sparse, weren't (daylilies, hosta, foxgloves all sprouted in abundance). If I had to generalize, I'd say it was a better year for perennials than annuals.

I live near Binghamton, in the river valley, so my yard is a bit warmer and more sheltered than many places Upstate. Still, it's been a strange year.

Laurel

It's been ... weird. I only got two seedlings each of cerastium and hollyhocks, from both being pretty heavily sowed.
Tried snapdragons and veronica, same issue - I think I have 7 or 8 plants from the two combined.
Alyssum did the same thing - I have a whopping 3 plants on that one.

However, I sowed baby's breath and statice together - both from old seed - and I have a MAT of plants, wall to wall in the poor jug. 'Cupid' sweet peas germinated perfectly; 100%! But now that they're tucked in new places, they haven't grown at all. 0_o
Larkspur came in very very late, but has done well since (and I've NEVER gotten this one to go before, so yay!)
I had about 7 (or roughly 1/3) milk jugs do nothing.

I've re-sowed a bunch... Nasturtiums are now direct sowed and I'm hoping, and I have new sets of sunflowers and veggies I'm hoping do well.
We'll see. :)

I'm happy. Since our summers go into September and October, I've resown a couple which the slugs took out such as Hibiscus Red Shield and Tagetes Marigolds. Other than that I have lots of Alyssums, Snapdragons, Bachelor Buttons, Sunflowers, Toadflax, etc. in the annual department. In the perennials I have more Butterfly Bushes than you can shake a stick at as well as 4 different types of Butterfly Weed (Monarchs have already been spotted - YEAH!!), Penstemon, white and pink Lavenders, OGs, etc.

Percentage? I don't generally think about it much. Glad with what's up.

I wouldn't give up on too many containers yet though. Some stuff just germinated this past weekend when we had nice warm temperatures. Especially perennials - just tuck them away in a corner and water every once in a while. You never know.

It has been a very strange year for me.

I have had great germination on things that didn't do anything for me before, bad germination on things that did good for me before.
Tomatoes were slow, but I also had container failure and had to resow.
Still fighting to get more Basil (only Lettuce Leaf sprouted). Two others had one sprout each that fried.
Only one type of Marigold sprouted. Parsely, Chives, and Dill-- nothing.
Calendula-- sparse on the sprouts compared to seeds sown.
Petunias were slow too, but they are now mostly sprouted and picking up speed.

Things I have tons of seedlings for (and earlier than ever, or never got sprouts from before):
Gaillardia
Butterfly Bush
Butterfly Weed
Coral Bells "Purple Palace"
Perennial Asters
Columbine-- several types, all sprouted by early May. Usually I'm waiting until June for those.
Hostas- a couple types, both traded seed. Never had Hosta sprouts before and I expected to be waiting for them into late summer.

I haven't checked my germination rate lately because I've been busy planting (and battling the enemies of seedlings). But it seems my perennials were far ahead of my annuals this year. Kinda weird.

But we've also had a cooler, drier Spring. Things that are usually blooming now are not. Lupine is just beginning, Poppies are just starting to open up, and Bachelor Buttons are far behind. BBs and Irises are usually in bloom the same time-- my first blooms of the season after Daffodils and Tulips-- but only the Irises have opened up as of this week.

Linda

Hi Heather,

I did things a little bit differently this year and greatly improved my germination rate: 1) only seed requiring cold strat went out in early Jan. 2) I would have started the rest towards the end of Feb but we were below 0F so the remaining perennial seeds went out in early Mar. followed by the hardy annuals. 3) I sowed heavy, and I mean heavy, especially anything native. I've decided that I would rather get enough germination for even a small display than have leftover seed for the following year.

I wsed over 500 large containers this year and I am still waiting on between 60 - 80 to germinate. Some of these only contained a few seeds (leftovers) and others are long / hard to germinate. All in all I am very pleased this year!

I'm in z4, but I've had pretty good luck with germination this year. I did find that some of the things that are not germinating now (e.g. my first batch of alyssum, a few other usually early and reliable things) actually germinated in late March-early April before we got the extended cold snap that most of the central and eastern part of the US got. Some of those things germinated too well, too early and all got knocked out by the multiple nights of temperatures in the teens that we had.

Other than that, the only things that haven't germinated for me are a few things taht I expect to take multiple seasons to show up, and a few containers of T&M seeds, which I've heard can be unreliable. I've had good luck with many of the T&M -had probably 50-60 of their varieties, but I can see why some people are really frustrated with them compared to other sources.

I agree with ccoupkir about the way to do this though. I know Trudi will tell you that you can throw them all out there at the solstice, but in my cold climate, I have much better luck starting my annuals in March and April. The only ones that I throw out early are the annual poppies and larkspur and a few others that appreciate cold strat.

I actually didn't start any of my seeds until the end of Feb early March. That is why I was concerned with my germination. It doesn't seem like things would have rotted. I have still not gotten any germination from any containers since posting this. Maybe I will need to sow more things. The ones that didn't start for me are things i have never had problems with including:snapdragons, dianthus, agastache, salvia, hollyhocks, gaillardia, columbines, diasy,malva,pestemon and a few others. I guess I will just go ahead and resow next week if things still have not sprouted yet. It is just a bummer as I had planned a bed around most of those seeds.

Scouttiegirl,
It has been a different kind of year. I have only one kind of Basil of all the ones I sowed, and they usually have all peeked their heads by now. I'm wondering if the heat cooked the seeds (since it has now been very hot for the past two weeks).
I dumped alot of non-sprouters yesterday and I plan to do more early tomorrow. I'm dumping them into the beds where I want them to sprout if they do-- I still think they may sprout, but I want all those containers out of the yard by the middle of June, and I think there's enough growing in the beds now to keep the critters out of it (along with the vigilance of my cats and the dogs).
My Toms finally sprouted and had their first set of true leaves this week. All but one, Sungold-- which sprouted early, but fried-- are transplanted.
I am resowing some things (or sowing more of different things). I just get nervous that I won't have enough. But I've made a pact with myself that I can't sow more until more sprouted containers are empty.

I also wonder if sowing some things now (like Zinnias) if they will respond as well as they do when I sow them while its cold outside. Will things that perform well with WSing take longer to grow when Spring Sowing them? I usually only Spring Sow things that definitely don't like the cold.

Good luck with filling your beds, SG...keep us posted :-)

Linda

It's been good enough for me this year. Had good germination with both annuals and perennial ....probably about 80% success rate...some seeds didn't germinate at all. Maybe they need another winter ..who knows.

Sowed too many Petunia. Sowed them in late March. The seedlings were so tiny last month I thought I sowed them too late, but they took off when the temp skyrocketed last month.

Sowed a lot more ornamental grass this year. Most germinated well.

I may have to compost leftover soon. I am about planted out. There is no more room to stuff anything anymore. They are all rootbound. I actually have a tray of seedlings from 2006 that I really don't know what to do with.

I'll probably grow favorites in plant pouches. The rest will go to my compost bins.

Prairie Smoke seedlings will need to be planted out...maybe...I am rather afraid to plant them out now. Rolly Polly will devour them in no time since they are still quite small.

Webkat, I saw a Chelone seedling today. Here I was going to dump out the container. I actually dumped a good number of conatiners a few weeks ago. I might have been too hasty now on hindsight.