You might be able to get away with planting radishes now, but i think it's too late for lettuce. Think maturity dates, and what the weather is likely to be at that time. Radishes are 24 days, or thereabouts, so you might be able to harvest some by the end of September. Lettuce and spinach take longer to mature. I believe that spinach can be planted in September, though, for an earlier spring harvest. I'm planning on trying it in one of my flower beds. Oh - you can plant onion sets now for some green onions to go with those radishes!

Rudbeckia
Aquilegia (Columbine)
Gaillardia (Blanket Flower)
Digitalis (Foxglove)
Delphinium - Perennial types only!
Lavandula (Lavender) - English types only!

Here is a link that might be useful: http://images.parkseed01.com/parksgardens/pem000082/pem000082.html

So if I sprinkle some foxglove seed out where I want them to grow, now....I will have plants next spring? If this is so will they flower next year or will I still have to wait another year?.

Is this true for columbine as well? A couple friends and myself just did a seed collection from our gardens and exchange, this past week......I was given some freshly harvested seed from a friend and this would save me some time next spring if I could just plant them out now?

I let my artic iris go to seed and collected one pod the other day....I sprinkled the seed where I wanted more...so will see if this works as well.

I'm always looking for a lazy way to do things. LOL!

Sierra

Sierra, it would work out the same way as if the plant self-seeded. Sharon does a lot of this - she'll probably be around to give some tips.

I had a wild columbine grow in one bed and there are now a million seedlings. The question is, how come i don't have that problem with the columbines i PLANT? :>

Marcia, are the columbines you buy and plant hybrid?

I don't quite understand all the science behind it, but apparently sometimes hybrid plants don't produce seed, don't produce as much seed, or if they do produce seed the seeds themself might be sterile.

Glen

If you want to do it the 'easy' way and mimic mother nature, then watch what she does. Columbines bloom early and drop their seeds in late June....give or take a few weeks. They germinate shortly thereafter. Columbines apparently need warm soil to germinate. Perhaps this is why they seem to take forever with winter sowing. So...it may be a little late to toss out Columbine seed? They will germinate if you have a long warm fall....if not they will wait until next year in early summer to germinate. Like Marcia, I have a ton of Columbine seedlings from the seeds that dropped in June. The hybrids will not come true...but what they do produce is always an interesting surprise and usually very nice.

Same for all the other species. When do they naturally drop their seeds? Coneflower and Rudbeckias usually do sometime in September....maybe later. These seeds will germinate next spring.

With the exception of Columbine, I can't think of any perennial seeds that germinate shortly after they drop from the mother plant.....although there certainly must be others. Most wait until the following spring.
Jan

I am going to try this. I would like to hear more from Sharon ....like what other plants she has done this with.

Jan....Columbine doesn't usually bloom till July here....I still had blooms in August. Some seed pods are ready for harvest on our plants now and some arn't. My friend still had some in full bloom. Funny we are sooooo far behind you. So given what you said...it still might work...they may only germinate in spring......It will sure be worth a try......

To my surprise I had calendula self-seed last fall......plants were everywhere this spring.....I have never had that happen before in this zone. :O

Always learning something new on here.

Sierra

The columbines i plant are probably hybrids - i know i have McKenna's Giants, and i can't remember what else. By now, they've crossed so much that all i get are blooms that are a muddy blue. Some of my hybrid, or planted, columbines have self-sown but not a lot.

Winter-sowing them has been a problem too. I planted some inside at the same time and got sprouts from them. The outdoor ones have been REALLY slow - i think some of the Tower Pink has finally sprouted, but of course, that's one that i have a lot of already. One of the ones i started inside was called Tequila Sunrise. This was my second try with them. A few germinated and i've planted them well away from other columbines in the hopes that they won't cross with them.

Sierra, Digitalis purpurea Foxgloves are biennials so therefore its best to direct sow seed early spring so that they will have a whole season to form a rosette of foliage the first year, bloom the second year, produce seed (self-seed to make new plants) and then it dies. You can direct seed right now but you'll likely only have rosettes as well for next year. However, dwarf cultivars like Foxy or ÂCamelot will bloom in the first year if you start them early indoors. They are iffy in my garden as to being hardy, some years if the winter is very mild with lots of snow coverage, including a mulch of loose dry straw they have a chance to come back the following year, but unfortunately most years they donÂt make it, so therefore I treat them as annuals. There are also the true hardy perennial foxgloves, D. grandiflora and lutea, both will self-seed and come back every year if you let them be. IÂm also going try again next year the Strawberry Foxglove D. x mertonensis, this is a cross between D. grandiflora & purpurea.

IME, I love wintersowing Columbines, itÂs the only way I will sow them from now on... I have better success with germination using this method than to start them indoors. Yes they do self-seed naturally too but I like to control where to plant them.
Right now some of them are still blooming from spring ;)

Most hardy perennials and annuals will have enough time to produce blooms and set seed before a hard frost hits them, however not all the time, I find that my Rudbeckia ÂIndian Summer gets hit from an early frost before they can produce any viable seed, nor are they that hardy to come back every year for me, so again I treat these as annuals and start them every year too.

Forget-Me-Nots is another one that will self-seed early to produce foliage the first year and blooms the second year. If let be they will naturalize on their own.

Just a few good candidates for self-seeders... Most seeds fall to the ground near the parent plant.

Hardy Annuals:
Amaranthus caudautus Love-Lies-Bleeding
Ammi majus Laceflower
Bidens
Borage
Brachycome iberidifolia
Calendula Pacific Beauty Apricot
Centaurea 'Black Ball' Bachelor Button
Cleome
Coreopsis tinctoria
Cosmos
Cymbalaria muralis Kenilworth Ivy
Digitalis purpurea ÂCamelot or ÂFoxyÂ
Dracocephallum moldavicum
Echium vulgare
Eschscholzia californica 'Aurantiaca Orange California Poppy
Gilia tricolor
Gypsophila elegans Covent BabyÂs Breath
Helianthus annuus Sunflower
Impatiens glandulifera
Kochia scoparia trichophylla Burning Bush
Lavatera trimestris
Leonurus sibericus Siberian Motherwort
Linum grandiflorum rubrum Scarlet Flax
Lopezia cordata
Malva moschata  may act as a perennial too
Malva sylvestris  may act as a perennial too
Matthiola longipetala bicornis Evening Scented Stock
Nigella damascena
Papaver Poppy
Phacelia campanularia Desert Bluebells
Phacelia tanacetifolia BeePlant
Salvia viridis (horminum) Painted Sage

Perennials:
Achillea Yarrow
Aconitum Monkshood  seeds planted in spring may bloom the following summer, seeds planted later will not likely bloom for yet another year.
Agastache foeniculum
Alcea Hollyhock
Allium Ornamental Onion
Alyssum aurinia syn. saxatilis
Anemone sylvestris Snowdrop Anemone
Angelica archangelica - usually grown as a biennial.
Anthemis tinctoria 'Kelwayi' Golden Marguerite
Aquilegia Columbine
Brunnera macrophylla Siberian Bugloss
Campanula
Catananche caerulea CupidÂs Dart
Corydalis sempervirens
Delphinium grandiflorum Chinese Delphinium
Delphinium elatum
Dianthus
Digitalis grandiflora
Dracocephalum nutans
Echinacea purpurea Purple Coneflower
Echinops Globe Thistle
EPILOBIUM angustifolium Fireweed
Eryngium planum Sea Holly
Gaillardia Blanket Flower
Gentain
Geranium
Gypsophila paniculata BabyÂs Breath
Heliopsis False Sunflower
Hesperis matronalis Sweet Rocket
Heuchera sanguinea
Hyssopus officinalis
Leucanthemum superbum Shasta Daisy
Linum perenne Blue Flax
Lupinus Lupine
Lychnis
Mimulus guttatus Monkey Flower
Monarda didyma Bee Balm
Myosotis alpestris
Nepeta nervosa Catmint
Oenothera
Papaver alpinum Alpine Poppy
Papaver nudicaule Iceland Poppy
Papaver orientale Oriental Poppy
Penstemon
Phlox paniculata Garden Phlox
Polemonium caeruleum JacobÂs Ladder
Primula
Ratibida pinnata Yellow Coneflowe
Salvia
Saponaria Soapwort
Scabiosa columbaria
Scutellaria Skullcap
Solidago Goldenrod
Tanacetum coccineum Painted Daisy
Tanacetum niveum 'Jackpot'
Thymus serpyllum Creeping Thyme
Valeriana officinalis
Verbascum nigrum
Veronica
Viola

But like I said before a million times before. LOL, IÂm committed to the Winter Sowing technique, this will be my 4th year coming up and prefer this to direct sowing seed, this way I have control where I want to plant my germinated seedlings. If you haven't tried WS'ing yet, hop on the bandwagon and join the rest of us Fanatical Far North Winter Sowers ;)

I also let my plants self-seed, the more the merrier ;)

Sharon

Oh yes I forgot to add, two other good hardy annuals that self-seeds like crazy are

Consolida ambigua Larkspur
Iberis umbellata Candytuft

I'm sure I'll remember more ;)

Thanks Sharon,

Wow that is quite a list! I have had trouble with foxglove comming through in the spring. It seems to come out from under the snow green and fine.....but then it turns black and dies. I usually have one or two that seem to make it though. I tried covering with straw last winter and it didn't help....when I took the straw off some were black already.....Hmmmm. I don't care to much for 'foxy' its kind of small compared to some of the big showy types. I have also tried some of the other smaller types as well.

I tried winter sowing a few things last year....I was not successful with that....I think I started seed to early for here or something.

I have found that many plants here don't have time to set seed. Some years the rudbeckia comes through well....others it doesn't. I always leave the seed heads and hope for the best. This year I bought seed and started plants because I hardly had any last year.....this year my garden had a lot come back. LOL. I have never had coneflower self seed....maybe the birds eat the seed.

I bought seed for iceland poppies 8 years ago and just have let them go....I pull the odd plant that is in the wrong spot...but mostly just let them go where they want. I don't get over run with them or anything and they are nice bright surprise in some places. The Orientals I deadhead LOL.

Thanks again for the info...I'll keep this list. :-)

Sierra

I experimented with direct sowing in the fall last year. In fact this topic was one of my first postings on GW. Sharon was just as helpful back then and a huge winter sowing cheerleader. Testimonals from her and other WS'ers lead to me jumping into winter sowing this year and I can definitely say that I am one of the converted!

I did think that tossing seeds out in my garden could be a good lazy way to get plants so I tried it as well. My approach to direct fall sowing was to sow almost as late as I dared because I didn't want to risk having an indian summer and have seeds start to sprout only to be killed by plummeting temps.

It was also suggested by another GW'er (I'm sorry I can't remember who) that it could be helpful to provide some protection to the area where seeds were sown. The picture below shows what I came up with. These were small wooden shipping boxes that I removed the bottom from and plunged them into the ground, sowed my seeds inside and covered with wire. They served several purposes for me:
- in the spring I could tell where I had planted
- protection from critters and prairie winds
- snow catchers for extra moisture

Here is what I tried and the results:

Siberian Wallflower - very successful - grew to a substantial size and was the first thing to bloom in my garden this spring and flowered all summer.

Golden Marguerite - also grew well and bloomed late summer.

Lupins - good sized plants and to my surprise blooming this week.

Hollyhocks - plants about 2 feet tall - no flowers.

No shows were Columbine and Delphinium.

I am off to check my seed box to see what extra seed I could try this year.

Susan