I'm sweating and swearing right along with you, Nancy. I've still got way too many WS plants to find homes for and even started to enlarge the butterfly bed to give me some extra planting area but it was just too darn hot to dig turf. I squeezed 11 pots of gaura, French lavender, knautia, cherry brandy rudbeckia, penstemon (thx to you!), pink balloon flower & perennial snapdragon behind the garage where I dug out all the tall phlox. Those were disgusting with powdery mildew so I shovel pruned the lot of them, no regrets.

I cut the number of WS jugs by 200 this year from the year before. Hopefully I'll cut this year's total in half next time around and not be scratching my head wondering where to plant them all in July 2012.

Good luck with that...to both of us!!!

We certainly do dig ourselves into a hole that needs another hole, that needs another hole don't we? Not only do I have seedlings that are begging for a home but I also have been thinning out the "plunk and run" plants because they are too crowded! But the good news is this is my first year WSing and I have tons of blooms and my heart is happy! In the Spring I prepared over 800 sq. feet of beds for the seedlings. I have since added another 1600 sq. feet. As a newbie, I had no clue what I was getting myself into!

Dorothy (Meadows)

I am so relieved that this year I finished my planting out yesterday. My goal was June 30, but had to take some time off for a funeral in NJ. This year, I decided to grow all my peppers in containers, and setting all those cotainers up was quite time-consuming. I will try to pre-fill them this fall so they will be ready in spring. Then there were several beds I had to re-till and amend the soil and that took some time too. I still have some perennials to pot up and grow on, but that's O.K. I can do that at my leisure. I just can't seem to cut back, although each year I promise to do so. But there's always that great plant you have to try. I guess I am a true Winter Sowing jukie.

I am guilty with the rest of you. But at least everything in the milk jugs looks healthy. We're going to have low humidity for another day, so I'll be out in the morning planting. There are still two beds I haven't weeded yet this year. Yikes! How could I have worked hours and hours and hours in the garden, but I'm still not done? But the yard looks beautiful anyway. This is my third year of WSing and everything is filling in beautifully.

I'm sure you won't to be shocked to hear that I am still planting out... LOL. I have done a good job at keeping jugs looking healthy considering we've had VERY LITTLE rain. Doing lots of watering. I have lost just a couple plants. I truly am down to a small section of jugs that I am gonna get in the ground today!!! I haven't peeked at my jugs in the shade that have not germinated in about a month! Lol. I hope nothing is growing in them!! Hahahaha

I am enjoying my morning coffee on my front porch and catching up with GW but I should probably go change and get started......

Plant, swim, grill, chill, drink wine......... A perfect summer day!!!

I hope you all have a GREAT day too!
Btw... I'll post pics soon..... Flower beds looking good!!!

Plant, swim, grill, chill, drink wine - - Now THAT sounds like a fine example to follow!

It has finally rained here and broken the horrible heat (that makes my Norwegian self very cranky)and I have made some progress since posting earlier in the week; about half the plants are in.

The beds are looking great and as always the trouble is just not enough room for the "new ones". WSing has created such lushness! I have to try again to take and post pictures.

I also started some special zinnia seeds in 4' pots this week. My husband thinks I am nuts "You're upset you can't get what has already germinated in, yet you're starting more?" but I know from past years that I will be looking to add splashes of color here and there next month and the July sown zinnias will be ready!!!

I finally(!) got my tomatoes and pepper planted last weekend - the growth in the last week is so obvious, I could kick myself for not getting them out waaay sooner. Oh well.

Yesterday, I managed to plant a few things that were still in containers, crying to be released. The annuals sown for the windowbox are still not planted out, and I am not feeling any windowboxes right about now. I've resorted to sticking them wherever there is space. My poor Yvonne's salvia seedlings are crowding each other out in the container - will have to find a pot for them.

I purposely didn't sow too much this year, and I still end up with too many plants and too little space. I don't get it ...

PV

Sign me up for swimming & wine!!

I had miserable germination from my WS Shasta daisies so this week I summer sowed both Silver Princess & Alaska SD seeds and set the jugs in the shade on my breezeway. The Silver Princess already sprouted with what looks like 100% germination. Where do I think I'll plant them? HOS in the beds I'm already mentally enlarging of course!!!

It rained again here last evening so this morning all the bins I set out to catch rainwater had at least an inch in them. Neighbor walked over and asked if I was trying to catch rainwater in the wide, shallow plastic bins. I was tempted to say no, I set them end-to-end that way so I could easily step from one to the next. Between rainwater and the dehumidifier, so far this summer I've only used the garden hose to fill the birdbaths.

Still planting here too - just came in for a break from it. Honestly, I'm kind of sick of planting, lol. I'm doing the HOS method for things that probably should be planted singly, but hey, I figure better in the ground in clumps than in the milk jugs in clumps.

Just found almost an entire 6x10 bed that the moles/voles got to - plants browning and/or laying down. I just carried some daisies and lots of daylilies and stuck the roots in buckets of water for now. Funny how the weeds in that bed are still very firmly rooted.

It's always something....

Dee

Sadly, I must admit that I am still planting out last years winter sown seedlings. These were overwintered in small pots in the veg. garden. Now they are finding a home in my crowded beds or being repotted into larger pots. Only 2 ws jugs from this year still need planting, Indian Summer Rudbeckia and some late germinating violas.

For me getting older means that heat and humidity are more easily tolerated by these old bones.

Ooh, I had a great gardening day - went to the town compost site to get compost, found some half-rotted hay bales to use as mulch and piled up the car (score!). Then I spread compost and planted out my special Foxgloves - Digitalis 'Camelot' seedlings. They had already been potted into a flat to grow larger, so they were a decent size. I am wondering if they will even bloom a little for me this year, as they are reported to do?

Also planted some Physostegia 'Crystal Peak' (a white shorter Obedient plant) today.

I am whittling down to a few containers left from this year's WSing, which is the best planting out record yet! Still have about some WS plants from previous 2 years left to plant. But the pot ghetto is smaller this year, so progress is being made. :)

Terrene--curious where you got your camelot seedlings? I ordered from T&M last year, and I have been under impressed with what came up this year. (I also had to reorder Camelot seeds three times because they kept arriving pulverized.) Most were cream with spotted throats. One pink bloom about five inches tall. (I ordered the entire series of three different colors.) Weird. I am blaming T&M quality. I ordered a huge selection of seeds from them last year and the germination was terrible. I won't order from them again.

{{gwi:414769}}

I still like the idea of foxgloves and the Camelot series. Maybe another company would have better seeds.

cheers,
Norabelle

Isn't that irritating Norabelle. I got my seeds from Swallowtail. Camelot Lavender, white, and cream. I also ordered Digitalis 'Apricot Beauty', Excelsior hybrids, Aquilegia 'Origami' seeds in special colors, Echinacea Pow Wow and Primadonna White, and some others. I was going a little psycho last winter when we had all that snow, and ordered a bunch of pretty flowers.

I will be really disappointed if these seeds don't come out as expected and Swallowtail will hear from me! Why bother carefully sowing, labeling, pampering, and planting out according to color for seeds that aren't true?

So far, I've gotten pretty good germination with Swallowtail seeds, except for the Monarda Bergamo was a dud. The Petunia seeds are the only ones that have bloomed, and they have come out exactly as represented.

I appreciate your reply and information, Terrene. I hear almost nothing but rave reviews and support for Swallowtail. I think I will have to order some seeds from them.

I believe T&M was bought out by another company in 2009/2010 when I was ordering seeds (Park's maybe?). I think the quality of their products has deteriorated, and I see posts here and on garden watchdog that T&M isn't what it used to be.

I hope your Pow Wow is fabulous. I sowed "White Swan" last year, and I am happy with how vigorous and uniquely colored they look. Perhaps this year, I will order some of the pom pom looking Echinacea seeds--razamatzz?

Thanks, again, terrene!