Thank You for the link. It says 6-10 weeks before the first frost date which is 10/11 for the annapolis area. I was ready to start now, but it looks like I should wait to sow the seeds. Anytime in August is probably best. Thanks again.

thank you ibaprogrower... just went to the northeast greenhouse conference and expo in worcester mass, found a few people that do Ornamental Cabbage Kale plugs. i dont think i will have the time in may or june to sow my own seeds. so if the plugs are not to much at that time, then thats what i will buy.. as for the insects, anyone use marathon 1% "granular systemic insecticide" or some type of top dress application??? i rather not use a foliar spray application... ibaprogrower, im going to do some reading on Bonzi..ty again..

I usually wait too late to plant pansies! I would think late September is a good time. You want to wait until the hot weather is over for good. Mums will overwinter in Oklahoma. The usual advice I have seen is to cut them back twice, once at Memorial Day and once at July 4....usually 1/3 to 1/2. I would not cut them back now, though. They should bloom for you. As I am sure you know, cutting them back will help keep them stouter and less likely to sprawl when they bloom.

Jacob, Welcome to OK. Hope your brief stay is/was enjoyable. October weather is usually almost perfect---this year it stayed too hot in early Oct and then went straight to last night's freezing and near-freezing temperatures, so I guess we had our 3 or 4 days of autumn, then a winter-like day/night, and now hopefully we'll have a few more weeks of autumn before it gets cold and frosty again. I'm not even a little bit jealous of all you guys who grow your own rocks and watch them multiply every year. We're in the creek hollow beneath the nearest rocky ridge, and it is much easier to garden down here in our low-lying area than to try to garden on higher ground with rocks everywhere. Larry, I'm not surprised you had a frost. We dropped to 27 degrees and had a hard, heavy frost, so my plants experienced the sort of temperatures that lead to a killing freeze if they lost long enough, and also frost damage. It is unusual to get that cold this far south in zone 7b in October, but that's what happened. I am not too upset by it---the ground was really warm from the previous hot days and that may have helped save some of my plants. Most of the plants in the garden have severely freeze-damaged and freeze-killed foliage and flowers, but some plants, including lantana show only the most minor damage. The roselles and tomato plants have the most damage---the pepper plants and pineapple sage are barely damaged at all. Oddly, one of the most tropical plants I have in the ground, the candletrees (Senna alata, formerly Cassia alata) are among the least damaged. I'll wait and see how things look tomorrow though, because sometimes the plants don't seem too badly damaged for the first few hours after sunrise, but then as time goes on throughout the day, more and more damage becomes obvious. At this point I'd say at least half the garden plants have major freeze and frost damage, but mostly I'm just surprised it isn't 100% of them. We were already down to 33 degrees at midnight, so the garden spent a great deal of time at and below freezing. I think we hit 32 around 2 a.m. here and stayed at or below freezing for slightly over 6.5 hours. The amusing thing that made me laugh? The Johnson Grass in the bar ditch has worse freeze damage than my candletrees and roselles. Jennifer, Most of my basil looks fine this morning, but only because it was planted beneath the roselle plants and they shielded it from the cold. I had lots of shorter plants planted underneath and between the roselle plants, and all of them look pretty good today since the monster roselle plants pretty much buried them underneath all the roselle foliage. In this case, it worked out well for the plants since it protected them. If all your hatched chicks are pullets, that is simply amazing. Good for you---more eggs to feed and not so many rooster fights as young cockerels try to assert themselves and prove their superiority. Nancy, How odd is it that y'all stayed a dozen degrees warmer than we did? I expected the upper 20s here though, as we're in a low-lying creek hollow in the already low-lying Red River Valley, which is the perfect setup for early freezes and early frosts. It is sad that the cold microclimate doesn't help us at all in summer, but that's because there is no cold air in the summer. I need to get busy processing roselles. They are piled up in buckets and bowls everywhere just like tomatoes normally are in summer. By the time I get all the roselles processed and preserved in one way or another, I'm going to be sick of looking at them and handling them. Dawn