Vera during the day the laundry room is pretty bright until about 2 or 3 in the afternnon as it is on the east side of the house so it gets the first light of day. The temp in there stays about 70 and occasionally a little warmer if I am doing lots of laundry but probably no warmer than 75 degrees. This is actually a slow growing shrub. Growing in a container it will stay smaller (2-3 ft. tall and about 2ft. wide) than if grown in ground (4-6ft tall and probably 3 ft. wide). It is very easy to grow from seed and can be pruned to grow more as a small tree or trained as a bonsai. Penny

Thanks ellen; Looks like my green wave is arriving. I have only a little time in the morning to peak but I already have a quite a few sprouts. Can not wait till tomorrow for my "inventory". Most of my containers are small cups so I can shaffle them and separate hardy ones from tender ones. All my containers are in the "unscreen" portch. Screens haven't been instaled yet so they are protected to some extend. Thanks for leting me know that I can not bring them inside. As I said, I'm committed, I'll try to protect them. In a few months will see how early we can sow annuals. However, whatever will be the result, next year, I'll restrain myself and wait till April. Well, mistakes of the beginner.

Tomva - you have a red gaillardia, followed by a red annual poppy, bachelor buttons, snap dragons, a coreopsis, something really red (maybe another type of coreopsis - I can't tell from the photo), and malva sylvestis. They look good! Lynda

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.