I do sea holly that way every year. Works great and schedules in nicely after my winter sown babies are all planted out and distributed.

Maybe that's why the Sea Holly I WS 2004-2005 didn't germinate! Hmmmm.
Here's pics of the Gardeniaand the Bay Laurel . I'm pretty proud of these babies, hoping I'll be able to show some pictures of them 5 years from now:
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(Oh, and I learned a long time ago that 'Yours' does NOT have an apostrophe S)

One of the most important things I learned this year is to bottom water. At first I did the overhead..those seeds were displaced and had poor germination. The jugs that were dunked and bottom watered did MUCH better.

I learned that tiny little seedlings get really, really big! What I thought was an expansive new bed became crowded and over grown. Fortunately, many of them were annuals that were supposed to "fill in" while the perennials got started. Now that I've pulled them out, things look nicely balanced.
Martha

Wintersown seedlings can survive almost anything, from the worst neglect to flooding of 20 inches of rain. They just can't survive the chipmunk attacks very well and the zinnias, and dahlias don't survive and unknown attack of slugs.
Next year as soon as the zinnias and dahlias sprout, containers are well off the ground. Forget about the amount of rain, mud and flooding, off the ground they go.

As for the chipmunks, datura helped. the dumb things eat the leaves and die, but I sware their dead bodies reproduce too.
Their favorites are almost any morning glory, violas, easter egg plant, portulacca, edelweiss, monkey flower, garlic chives, chives, basil, mint (gotta freshen that breath for the girls, I guess), zinnias.

It will be war on them next year.

Fran

Big thing I learned? Hmmm.

To be realistic and pay attention to MY needs. I have to get the garden all weeded and mulched and depotted by the middle of July, because once the heat sets in I'm toast. I can't do high heat anymore and so I rarely even venture outside for the last half of summer, except predawn or after dinner when the night might cool the air.

It's a pain in the butt, but if I can't maintain the garden it's a problem. So I'm learning to get the staking done, the bushy plants whacked back early, the mulch in place to keep down the weeds.

T

Well, the biggest thing I learned this year was that winter sowing actually works!
I learned so many things this year....
Water sprouts a bit less, especially if leaves turn yellow
Bottom watering works better than top watering
Identification of bugs: cutworms, grubs, vine borers, squash bugs, flea beetles, japanese beetles, tomato horn worms, and more.
Identification of early blight on tomatoes, powdery mildew, & hollyhock rust.
Seed collecting!
I also learned how to treat some of the bug and fungus problems too.

I'm looking forward to next year! It was fun, even if I did have some bug and fungus problems!

1. I'm not so good at getting my winter sown seedlings planted on time.

2. Although I start off well, I'm not very consistent with my record-keeping. When the seedlings need to be planted, it's time for me to stop re-arranging my garden beds.

3. Some of my favorite plant combinations just happen.

4. My husband would be so happy if I were a tidier housekeeper. Translation: seeds not all over the dining room and kitchen; potting soil kept off the kitchen floor; winter sowing containers not making an obstacle course in the kitchen. P.S. He loves all the compliments on the garden, though!

I will not try to grow all the seeds in the world

(at least from now until January...)

LOL...drippy.

Trudi, I need to learn to be realistic because my garden was a weed fest due to my lack of being able tolerate heat. Remind me of what you said here in May and June so I'll get my butt in gear with the mulch.

Wendy, it was definitely a bug and fungus year up here. Awful, awful, awful. I have sores on my arms that are just now healing up from bites I was getting all summer. The bugs were plentiful and hardy and eating me and my plants.

Dirty...umm, can I make you feel better? I just planted out three WS plant containers yesterday. Sedum, and two kinds of St. John's Wort. Come to think of it, I still didn't get the Sedum in the ground. Tomorrow.

That I would rather grow what I really want for my gardens and stick with those rather than trying some other kinds of seeds that I am not so excited about but was curious to see if they would grow. I love the fact, also, that I am not afraid to pull something I don't want. It's cheap enough to plant something else! Carrie

I just learned that Pat and I are married to the same man ;-O

4. My husband would be so happy if I were a tidier housekeeper. Translation: seeds not all over the dining room and kitchen; potting soil kept off the kitchen floor; winter sowing containers not making an obstacle course in the kitchen. P.S. He loves all the compliments on the garden, though!

Don't break an ankle a month before the beginning of WS season. On the bright side, better a month before rather than a month after. How heartbreaking it would have been to have all those WS babies and not be able to plant them out!!!

One thing that Wintersowing (or growing from seed in general) has taught me is that I much prefer the look of a large garden bed that is overflowing with "common" seed grown plants than a small garden bed that has just a few high priced cultivars. The design books say to plant in masses...3s, 5s, 10s...but at $8 a pop that is hard to do. This is the first year that I have been happy with my perennials beds and I attribute that directly to the plants that I wintersowed over the 04/05 season.

- Brent

Enjoyed reading all your posts. :-)

I do the same thing trudi, during the second half of the summer. If everything can be all set to take care of itself before it gets hot, I am happy. I do enjoy the fall garden once the weather cools down again though.

Last year, the drying seeds were everywhere and someone posted a photo of how they keep paper plates of drying seeds out of the way. They clear off the top of their dining room hutch and stack them pyramid style on the top. Voila! No more mess on the DR table! Loved that idea, thanks to whoever posted that photo. It is working for me. :-)

Sorry about your broken ankle lyn.. ..hope you are doing fine now and that 2007 winter sowing season will make up for it.

Great idea for a post.

Hope that ankle heals well Lyn!

Brent, thank you thank you thank you!
I too am devoted to the beauty of the most simple and common of plants. These are the ones which are usually available in dollar store seed packs. I enjoy the old-fashioned plants, they remind me of my Mom and her flowers. To me, nothing is more comforting that seeing a big fat bed of marigolds or black eyed susans or a stunning border blooming in August of plate size hibiscus. It's all so nice and all so special, and with WS, it's also all so cheap too ;-)

This year I bought some mixed seed packs and planted out my hellstrip with drought-resistant annuals and perennials. All my neighbors tell me how lovely it is--they love to push the strollers by so the babies can see the flowers. For $2 in seed, I'm the neighborhood plant lady ;-)

I can grow sunflowers which the deers will not eat but there are prerequisites... They must grow over 9 feet and be very close to the house! The 'over 9 feet' prerequisite is probably the most important one.

I was thinking that I might have fibbed with my statement "I attribute that directly to the plants that I wintersowed over the 04/05 season", because when I was looking at my beds yesterday I notice a number of plants that I added that I did not wintersow. But the other advantage of wintersowing was that it gave a lot of stuff that I could then trade at the local swaps. Sure I gave a lot of the stuff that I grew away for free, but I also swapped a lot of it for other great plants.

Here are some of the common wintersown plants that were "new to me" but that I really loved this year: Purple Coneflower, Joe Pye Weed, Coreopsis 'Early Sunrise', Rudbeckia hirta, Candytuft, and Shasta Daisy.

- Brent

All of the above!

bottom water
stake when necessary! (learn to lash properly!!!)
400 containers isn't too many!
work on the height/color thing more this year.
If it still looks like there's not enough in the bed, STOP PLANTING! Use the 3,5,7, etc rule, but pay attention to size! Size matters!
Vertical interest can be incorporated nicely into a flat bed (ie: MGs!!!)
Someone already mentioned the 'expansive bed wasn't big enough' factor; I'll probably find the same thing to be true once I yank the annuals out.

Here's a biggie that no one mentioned, but doesn't have a WHOLE lot to do w/WSing:

Little beds are quick, fun, and EASY! Pick a spot, toss down some cardboard, newspaper, and compost materials (NOW), and it'll be ready to go come spring.
And if you don't get a round tuit now, use Donn's Instant Beds method to make more in the spring! SO EASY!!!

Another thing no one has mentioned yet, if you don't like the plant or flowers blooming, just dig it out and plant another one. There's always something that you didn't get in the ground yet from WS seedlings. You won't feel so bad about digging up when you have plenty more to fill the hole with.
I just pot up the one I didn't like and put it aside. Somethimes it grows on me and I find another spot for it, other times I just add it to the composite bags.

When you pay big money for those seedlings I find the plant stays in the ground even if I don't like it in the end. Now it's just pop it out and pop in a new one.

Fran

Fran- You've been lurking in my driveway, haven't you? Let's just not tell that I still have a container of China Roses not planted out, ok?

I've learned that WS works best if you actually collect/plant seeds rather than chaff! Better luck next year with the fountain grass. Sigh...

I also agree with Brent that it makes a huge difference to be able to have enough of a given plant to make an impact. That's something that's always been difficult for me given nursery prices and my death grip on the purse strings.

mmqchdygg, be your driveway looks like my back yard. I'm still putting in my columbines, down to only 5 containers now, but on Friday I had 12 left.

Another thing I learned. WS tomato plants just keep on going like the energizer bunny. We've had frost after frost, "killing frost" so they say. My thermometers where reading 26 degress and the tomato plants have been nipped alot, but still have green leaves and stems and tomatoes on them and they are fine. yesterday found more fresh green stems, leaves and would you believe flowers too?

keep taking off the tomatoes, bigger ones, but nothing like they used to be in size, and leaving those really little guys out there and they keep growing and growing. got nothing to lose.

Be careful where you dump the containers that don't sprout, unless of course you enjoy surprises. I used to dump them over the porch, behind the yews. I figured the yews needed some fresh soil.

We took the yews out last fall and made a new bed. I didn't plant anything because the soil was rather hard. Over the course of the summer, it grew a cherry tomato plant, thyme, calendulas, pennyroyal, and lamb's ears!

Mary

Cool! What a lovely herb garden too!

"That I would rather grow what I really want for my gardens and stick with those rather than trying some other kinds of seeds that I am not so excited about but was curious to see if they would grow."

Carrie, its taken me two years to learn that fact-to grow the old standbys and ones I remember my mother growing. Having said that, I still find weird unusual plants that I want to "just try, just once, just to see what they look like".

The biggest thing I've learned, however, is that I never stop learning-and you folks are such an important part of that. I come to this forum every day and learn something new that sends me in a whole other direction researching something. Thank you, thank you for that!

It's not one thing, it's many!

I've learned that if something doesn't "work," I can change it without having wasted $$$.

Culinary sage makes a very nice ornamental plant and neutral filler in a border. My winter sown ones were HUGE this year (their second year), and bloomed in lavender and pink.

I can plant in multiples (like others have mentioned) for a very reasonable price.

I like the "old standbys" more than delicate rarities, but I can still try something new each year for the price of the seed, and not feel like I've wasted big bucks if something doesn't work out.

I'm not too good at collecting seed and saving it indoors, but I have discovered that certain plants will self-seed quite nicely, and I can scatter their seeds outdoors in the late summer and fall when I pull up the remnants of this year's annual plants (nigella, malva sylvestris, snapdragons, alyssum). That frees up some container space for other goodies.

I need to STAKE THINGS. EARLY.

If I can successfully winter sow daylilies this year, that will significantly free up window sill space in my house in the future!

I'll need a cage, a dog, and every repellent known to man to successfully grow sunflowers - those blankety-blank woodchucks ate every one of mine this year. But they sprout wonderfully from WS, so I'll doubtless try them again next year. Hope springs eternal, I suppose.

Speaking of hope, this is a WONDERFUL group of people - the friendship and encouragement I've received here have been even better than the many lovely flowers I've grown through WS.

Laurel

After 4 years of wintersowing, I still need to remember that seedlings do get bigger...especially when I'm planting out perennials! Every fall I end up moving things around. When I do it will annuals and see them crowding out (early enough), I dig them up and move them and they usually take off. This year I'm going to remember to note potential height/width in advance before getting in a hurry to plant out!
I also learned that if I don't like it...chuck it!

Vera

Don't collect seeds in zippy bags and forget them on your counter...Mold!

Use paper bags.

Laurelin, please email me some of your blankety-blank woodchucks that eat sunflowers, and I'll email you some of the birds that kicked the sunflower seeds out of the feeder and all over the place where they sprouted and I let 'em all grow just to see what was going on (my first year gardening, what a hoot!) Also, please make sure the woodchucks are all boys so I don't end up with woodchucklets. (oh, how do you email a woodchuck? it's easier if you scan 'em first, if you can get them to hold still.)

Morgan

I learned that Feb isn't the best time to winter sow warm season veggies, no matter how HIGH the temps were for a few weeks prior to wsing.

Altho my toms lived thru several frosts, high winds, and lots of rain last year, it was a pain having to cover and uncover containers for an extra month.

I thought I had it licked this year when I waited an ENTIRE two extra weeks to ws my toms, then came the weird April night-time freezes that have lasted a week at a time. (I actually lost about 20 tom sprouts, even tho I covered them, in that first April freeze that lasted a week here in TN.)

Oh well, maybe I will be able to restrain myself and wait until April to ws my toms next year (altho I doubt it).

Wow! Where'd this post come from?

I've since learned that there is no apostrophe on "Yours"

Linda

Ah since normally only grow tomatos and veggies. Holly hocks seem to be a biannual. Ekk. That means those beautiful plants wont be back this year. Have planted more seeds but dang they were over the top of the barn last year and just breath taking.

Let Carrie ask the tought ?'s she gets great answers to them.

Also besides bugs/deer/ground hogs, horses and peeps also like to eat all the produce that is grown.

ML

I enjoy it more if I do hold back and only sow about thirty things. And, I did it this year. Ma nature had a role in that, but the fact that my beds are packs already with three years of previous winter sown babies certainly helped.

I am being more thoughtful now, but still having fun. The first three years of gonzo sowing were fantastic.

next year i won't start my seeds so early in the year. and pay more attention to what i'm sowing, some seeds needed to wait till march. i started them in jan. and most have not sprouted. i'll also not use strawberry containers, whole chicken containers, or anything that holds less then 2 in. of dirt. they dried out to fast, i was watering them 2-3 times a day. i liked the person that used styrofoam cups and then put them into large plastic storage bins.
this whole wsing has been fun, and a learning exsperience.
jennie

Don't start Morning Glories inside too early or any plants for that matter. I have a tangled mess on my hands hopefully I can get everyone untangled. And of course I learned all about WSing and I love it. I will be planting at least twice as many containers next year.

strouper

If you have cats, never - but never - leave a bag of potting soil on the floor overnight. Were you aware that just an 8-qt. bag of potting soil is enough to completely cover a good-sized kitchen floor? Well, it is.

Next year I will plant more of the things I like and not so many "new" plants. Sometimes I'd prefer the look of a sea of marigolds or alyssum rather than a bunch here and a bunch there. I have subconsciously held myself to one container per plant type (with the exception of alyssum and poppies and only this year). So now I have hundreds of containers with hundreds of different types of plants but fortunately there are lots in each container so if I'm good I can separate them pretty well and get the "bulk" effect.

I learned not to water the containers till I am ready to set them outside. Lost the first round of annual poppies that way, they sprouted in the laundry room and I had stacked pans.
Also learned that I have to find a more protected wind area for the milk jugs.

Don't sow every seed that is in the packet.

Adding a pinch of polymer crystals to the soil helps the seedlings/plants from drying out to quickly.

Don't worry if you can't plant out every seedling immediately. If some have to wait to be planted out, that's okay. Pot them up into larger containers, remember to mark them and transplant when you are able to. The only timeline is the one you make for yourself!

If you have hot dry Summers, Spring & Fall is the best time for planting out.

I learned that if I sow over 200 containers I am going to have to water 200 containers, which takes over an hour! I also learned that slugs like zinnias even if they are in my homemade greenhouse! I also learned that some seeds need two seasons to sprout!

Well thats all for now!

The Garden Pooter!

I'm learning to not bother putting peat pots in milk jugs, I haven't been able to keep the darn things damp at all. :/

Total waste of my time trying to set that one up. :)

Although I have been starting plants indoors for many years, this is my first year to wintersow. Have had great success with 80+ containers! (I have been trying to grow Cup and Saucer vine for 3 years and this is the first year it has germinated!) I have really enjoyed reading this forum....but this is my first time to post here. I have learned several things which I have jotted down in my garden journal for next year. Maybe this will help others who are also new to this concept!

1. Write the height of plants on the markers or containers. This saves time having to go look it up when planting out.

2. Vent milk jugs by cutting a flap on the side instead of having the tops flopping all over, getting caught by the wind, etc.

3. Don't use shallow containers...dry out too fast.

4. Don't water so heavily before planting seeds....had green moss in lots of containers because they stayed too moist.

5. Make larger drainage holes in bottom, for the same reason as above.

6. Write names of plants on tape to stick on milk jugs instead of on the container itself, so I can wash and reuse the jugs if desired.... (I have used my empty containers that have been planted out to sow later seeds like Cosmos, etc.)

Thanks to all for the advice and support available here!!

mayflower57

That I am still a rookie. Rookies!.............don't you just love 'em?

As I newbie I have no success stories but I can share what I have learned thus far..

1. Newspaper is the best quick fix for a bed overgrown with weeds that is so far from the house that the notion of planting anything there is so far off the too do list that typing it onto my to do list hasn't reached the end of my fingers - not to mention the fact that is was an area I thought, for two years, was my neighbor's neglected mess! Much to my mortification it was really my mess - newspaper, mulch, forcythia and stella dora - beautiful, weedless, in a morning. And it still looks good nearly a year later!

2. I love sprouts! Period! They are growing!! I hope they live but right now I have my instant gratification. I seed green in those jugs!

3. A nice glass of wine, viewing my potential plants, is a lovely thing on a warm spring day. I know I look silly sitting with my feet up admiring a bunch of milk jugs but hey... I am over 30... well over 40.. who do I need to impress but myself!

4. I am so ready for planting! I bought 6 flats of flowers last weekend - I thought I wouldn't be buying any more

5. My design skills improve when I "pretend" to read a book while drinking a glass of wine and observing my gardens! With every glass of wine I have better and better plans! :)

What I wish I'd learned..

1. Why do I keep buying, buying, buying plants and seeds?! Why do they call my anem?? "Christy, Christy, Christy, we need you... you need us.... buy, buy , buy forget your husband... he loves you and doesn't really care if you keep buying!" Well... I am not so sure about that - at least my house isn't full of zip lock mini green houses...

2. When will my husband quit rearranging / adding to my gardens? I love gardens but last fall I split and replanted a bunch of border plants to edge a garden perfectly... they are now in the middle of the new and improved garden - which melded my perfect red and white garden with my emerging purple and yellow garden - what to do with that? (I net a pond in the production so I will quit whining!)

3. When will I figure out how to keep track of what I have planted, what it looks like, how tall it is, is it perennial....???? I plant, go and forget... I hate that I do this but cannot quit! buy, plant, buy, plant, buy, plant it is an addiction!

Christy

A new idea can be a good idea.
Not too plant too thickly.
Use good soil.
Be prepared to transplant shortly in some cases.
Plant seeds with like needs together.
Use containers that have enough depth for seedlings. I would think at least 5 or 6 inches with head room.
Not to fret, but if I do do what I think needs done and
they will survive ( Bring inside after they have sprouted and there is a hard frost ).
That green is a beautiful color.
Karan

Big thing I learned this year:
I will sow MUCH LESS next year. Right now I have seedlings coming out of my ears. . .And I will likely have to pot up quite a few until they're big enough to survive out at the wild garden, where the groundhogs, skunks, squirrels and other creatures will stomp them, chew them, dig them up and generally make my life challenging. Ack!
I also learned that I can grow just about anything from seed. :)

When transplanting seedlings, not to hysterically freak out if they flop over for the first few hours because, they will rebound. Oh, and it is normal for the seed leaves to shrivel up and die after they have their true leaves. Oh, and I REALLY LOVE WINTERSOWING!!!!!