Northerner...just read your post and seeing as it's a little past 1AM I'm counting the hours until I can get out to the shed to check my bags of Miracle Gro and see what the bags say! I'm bereft of knowledge with nomenclature of "dirt" but am learning fast...usually when I think I've got things covered and someone points out what may be a flaw in my master plan...LOL. Sorry for the "flowery" language...I'm a little punchy right now. After a full three days of turning over packed soil down to 18", chopping out grass & roots, amending and planting "1 gal. starter plants" what was supposed to be a 10'x10'x9' Butterfly Garden ended up being more like 20'x20'x15'...as we can all see my powers of estimation are not to be overestimated! Although it did stand me in good stead since I bought way too much fencing to keep out the deer, rabbits, groundhogs and everyone else who will want to eat my garden down to nubs in the spring...LOL. My poor little size 9 tootsies were numb by 5PM when I finished since it was a very cloudy, windy 43 degrees here at midday but it had to be done. Finish bulbs this weekend and then get ready for Thanksgiving. Thank goodness so many posters on this forum have said it's fine to wait til Dec. and beyond to WS! Gotta plan on more "body insulation" for really cold months. I decided to use the moisture retentive potting "mix" or whatever it is for all the bulb containers I have to finish this weekend. A few local nursery people told me not to worry about bulbs getting "wet feet" from moisture retentive property so I'll use it up for that. They were also the ones who told me they used it for their "container plants" which is another thing I might have needed to clarify but that's water over my dam or under my bridge by now. You're absolutely RIGHT...the distinction between Potting "Soil" and "Mix" didn't even register in my mind. Since I'm heading out tomorrow, finally, to grab the bags of my WS "planting medium" I now know I have to look for potting MIX and not SOIL. I had no idea everyone was using "soilless seed starting mixes" that are sterile. I thought I was just going to use very high class DIRT...LOL. Thank you big time for pointing out the distinction. Still haven't ordered any seeds yet. Checked out the Park Seed sale and they're out of anything I might have wanted. Haven't looked in Lowe's or Home Depot yet for seeds and didn't even know they carried them since haven't been frequent visitor to their gardening centers until this year. Everything in both stores has been "cast out" to make room for all the holiday things. Some in the forum have mentioned SwallowTail & HardyPlants as to dependable sources and more I can't remember. I have to maintain some degree of decorum in ordering seeds so I don't end up with way too many plants and nowhere to put them. Then again, after reading one winter sower's experience with losing all her little ones the first year I shouldn't be so cavalier as to think that will be a problem! Planning on WSing natives as much as possible to fill out Butterfly Garden but not being a purist at this early stage I'll go with non-natives if I need to. Want to duplicate few of gallon size plants I already put in for greatest effect in terms of "masses of color" since butterflies apparently can't see individual plants too well. Between the soil, sun, height, spread and now the visual acuity of butterflies is just another little detail but I just couldn't wait to start the garden! Also want to WS things for spring and summer containers since most of ground here is rootbound and can't penetrate it even when jumping on spade. Had to use an ax to break up small areas I eked out for couple "land based" projects I've done. Thanks again for the info...much appreciated. Before I go to get my potting MIX tomorrow morning there's a clearance on all leftover perennials & ferns at a local nursery that I've got to stop at just to see if there's something ready to plunk into that Butterfly Garden now. If they work fine...if not there's always my WS babies to count on if I play all my instructional cards right. I keep reading the FAQs over and over and didn't even notice the soil versus mix thing. I've got leaves spread out all over the yard drying out from recent rains so I can fill the fenced in Butterfly Garden to 6-8" which is what nursery from which I bought gallon plants suggested. Thanks again.

I think that you might get flowers. I did my lupins as a fall direct sow. I am hoping to get flowers this year. Snapdragons---I do indoors in a south window. They are too slow to flower here from a WS. The dwarf snaps like "Magic Carpet"---I direct sow.

I'm out doing damage control now. My VERY tall buddleia bushes (trees, really) have toppled over. Should I just give them a hard prune now? I feel bad for the butterflies... as these were blooming. My ceanothus tree has also toppled, and it's also blooming. SIGH. Don't know whether I should prune, or try to straighten it up with a post?? Also, I'm eating my words now about my drains comment a few posts up.... I spent the day out in the pouring rain with the plumber, snaking the drains. Turns out that roots have grown in them, and they have to be replaced. Well, I guess I get to re-landscape my front yard now, LOL. We bought a pump, and got rid of the "lake" that way, in the pouring rain. Where is our Indian Summer?? Oh, and we had a little earthquake last night. Always crazy stuff in October, it seems. Well, at least we don't have hurricanes/tornadoes!

Not trying to get into the wintersow vs. not wintersow debate here but....... The only time it makes sense to wintersow is when you are sowing seeds needing cold stratification and I know some of the ones you listed do not need it. I sowed the Asceplsis incarnata in early August and plan to put them in the ground under mulch all winter. I am winter sowing some native shrub seeds needing a couple months of cold strat. in pots outdoors and three others that are perennials that specifically need it. There are no hard fast rules to this. To each his own. I rather enjoy sowing indoors in winter and have had very good results and it gives me an uplift in winter to do that. I have had good head starts on healthy plants this way and have sowed many SW shrubs, perennials, ornamental grasses, cactus, etc. I always have something indoors in winter I am sowing. I usually start them in October or November in a large sunny S. exposure window and grow them very cool in the coldest dark months sort of in a wait pattern, then let them get warm again in late Feb when the sun comes stronger. I use lights sometimes if necessary but usually they just sit there in the cold. I am not a wintersower to the degree popularized to a hobby level of lots of containers with holes, lids etc craze with every seed I get being done that way. I just use regular pots in the shade under the carport for the seeds specifically needing a cold period. For penstemons its good, they come up when its still very cold. Some seeds needing cold I direct sow. Sometimes I experiment and try all different ways to see what does best with a backup supply to resow in spring. Look up your different varieties and see what they need and go from there. I have sowed seeds as early as October and had established plugs to put into the ground come spring. Other times I put the late summer sown seedlings in the ground in late fall and cover them with leaf mulch and had good well rooted starts that way in spring. Look at nature, she does that all the time with seeds that have fallen. Mostly, make it fun for yourself and do what you want. Save extra seeds for insurance, or try multiple ways and experiment. Do a test in a damp paper towel with a few seeds to see if they sprout in a few days. Often that will tell you want you need to know.