I hear ya. I have some shade areas too. Here is what I have had luck with thats easy from seed you could try. They do better in full sun but they will bloom in shade and stay upright. You name it, I've tried it. These are all easy to grow wild flowers about 2ft tall. You can dead head them in fall or let them naturalize which they will very easily. These are all easy to find in seed packets. Annual gaillardia--comes up super easy, grows fast blooms non stop all summer until frost. Mealycup sage--native perennial that blooms well and stays upright in shady spots, very easy from seed. Purple coneflower--need to sow seed in fall for cold stratification. Takes a season to develop into a blooming sized plant. Lanceleaf Coreopsis--super easy from seed, plant can be practically pulled out of ground and transplanted elsewhere if you want, they fill in fast and make a good filler until other plants fill in. Blooms in spring only but makes a nice green ground cover. They will carpet an area if you don't thin them but its easy to pull unwanted ones out. Purple Winecups--they are blooming right now on the sides of the roads here, impossible to miss, you can buy seeds or collect from wild. There are also White Winecups. Black Eyed Susans--- I have Rudbeckia 'hirta' which is a biennial out there blooming like crazy in a shady spot. Plant now and next year they will be fabulous. I've purchased those mixed wildflower packets before, very disappointing and usually they only have a brief bloom time, I did two packs this year and said never again, waste of money. My description is "puny". These I listed are good, reliable and have presence. Oh and I do have a "wild-scape"--maybe not what you visualize when I say wild, Its 95% natives here, very natural but still a garden. Ha ha, just had to throw that in. This post was edited by TexasRanger10 on Wed, Jun 4, 14 at 1:03

kek, I empathize. You're not doing anything wrong. I have seedlings that germinated in early April, before our onset of 2 weeks of freezing temperatures. Most of them survived, but to this day, they are just sitting there and pouting, about the size of a pepper flake. Then last night we had a frost and every single one of my cactus zinnias, about 5 inches tall, (sowed in early April, lesson learned) keeled over. It just hasn't been a great WSing year, at least not here in my corner of zone 7. Last year at this time, I couldn't plant out fast enough to keep pace with seedlings that were growing so fast they were getting leggy in their containers with each passing day. And the containers were full of green, unlike the spotty germination this year. For two things I am grateful: that this was NOT my first year to winter sow (I wouldn't have believed the hoop-ha) and that I have many reseeders. So, the ageratum, celosia, and others I need a magnifier to see in their containers have counterparts in the garden many times their size. Impatient? Maybe, but you're not the only one!

Live in Orlando Florida. Switched over to Organic fertilizer 8 months ago. Notice grass greener and soil richer. Organic fertilizer is easy to get here. However we had problems with weeds and major problems with Chinch bugs where we will have to replace some Floratam sod in the spring. What can we use on both weeds and especially Chinch bugs? Can you please provide specifics (names, brands and places to order, as well as when to specifically apply) No one here seems to have anything Organic to fight weeds or Chinch Bugs. We want to continue being Organic but it is like the stone age when it comes to getting the products you need in order to do it.

Thank you for all the responses. I never grew them before and I didn't realize how long they took to ripen. Dave, that website with the timeline was just what I was looking for. I will probably have to pick them when they start to change color too because I have a lot of raccoons and squirrels living in the woods in my backyard. Thank you again for the responses. Now I know the tomatoes will be worth the wait! Tracey