Maty,
Happy Mother Day to you also. As it seems you are talking about flowers mainly I will let the experts come along and give their good advice. Basically it matters what you are planting. I know there has to be some you can still start. I deal mainly with veggies. And plant seeds clear up into December. Just what I plant changes. Dawn, Lisa and others should be along soon. Mainly wanted to say welcome aboard. Just a word of warning. There are a few enablers on this board. Jay

Welcome aboard, Maty!

I'm pretty ignorant on flowers but wanted to say howdy. :-)

Diane

Maty,

Happy Mother's Day to you too and go ahead and start seeds and have fun with it. For any seeds you're starting now, try to choose warm-season flowers that can handle being transplanted into the ground or containers because it will be hot by the time you're transplanted them.

Pretty much anything can go into the ground right now, especially once this week's cold front/severe storms move on. You also can direct sow flowers that are easy from seed like zinnias, cosmos and sunflowers. If you've never grown moonflowers, which are related to sunflowers, I'd like to suggest you try them. They produce very large white blooms that open up in the evening hours and have a delicious fragrance. I grow morning glories and moonflowers together since they bloom at opposite times.

Be sure you plant your coleus in shady locations. Unless they are the cutting-grown, trademarked Sun Coleus varieties, coleus cannot handle full sun in Oklahoma.

Welcome to the forum. We have a lot of fun here.

Dawn

Thanx Jay, Diane, and Dawn.

I have grown six moonflowers about four years ago and had planted then out along the fence but they were mowed over a couple times and one cosmo that grew so big but was slowly beeing eaten by a mysterious animal. Later I found out that turtles where grossing the street to get to them and later where also accidently mowed over.
I am really excited about the Coleus though. They remind me so much of my mom and I hope that I can take very good care of them. I didn't know that they couldn't handle full sun here and I was planing to put them in full sun. Thanx so much again.
-Maty

Dawn, you said moonflowers are related to sunflowers. Is that what you meant? Or did you mean to say moonflowers are related to morning glories?

Dorothy,

LOL, well you know what I meant! I must have been tired or distracted when I was typing that. Of course, moonflowers are related to morning glories and I cannot believe I said they were related to sunflowers. That one has me wondering where my mind was?

Dawn

I'm glad I came back and read this. Some coleus happened to adopt me this morning. I'll stick it in my new, shadier flower bed when it's done later this week.

Diane

Diane,

If you see this, watch your weather or this website!

I grow coleus in morning sun/afternoon shade.

Dawn

Maty, welcome to the seed world :) It is VERY addicting!

Are your plants currently inside? You will probably need to harden them off. Move them outside to a shady place and gradually over a few days move them into more and more sun. Remember to water them! They will dry out quickly. This could be a good week to transplant with the cloudier weather that is expected.

For next year check out the Winter Sowing forum. You think this year was fun...next year could be a whole new ballgame :) We start seeds OUTSIDE in JANUARY :)

Once you transplant, keep watering every day for at least a week if we don't get rain. You want to keep them moist until they settle in.

I'm still planting and sowing...you are right in time for all the fun!

Lisa

Woo Hoo! and I hope you had a nice Mother's Day, too!

Lisa is absolutely right about winter sowing but we won't get into that right now.

What did you start your seeds in? Peat pots, peat pellets?? If you started them in the peat pellets that you soak and they swell up into cute little balls of soil, that would be great for your morning glories since they don't really like to be transplanted. If you started them in soil that you placed in tiny pots, just be careful when you transplant them, not to disturb the roots much. Also morning glories are best grown in lean soil, so unamended, non fertilized soil is best.

It's a lil late for snapdragons as they like it cool. Once the weather warms up, they don't like it too much and will get kinda raggedy. But persist, water them well, and they are likely to give you pretty blooms in fall.

Salvias love the heat. I don't know which ones you planted and there are tons of them. There are some that are perennial, and some that are annual. A lot of the annuals will reseed for you next year. Many bloom in the fall, and many bloom in summer until fall. But they usually grow quite well from seed. I have lots of seedlings I grew this year that are close to going in the ground.

As Dawn mentioned there are seeds you can sow directly in the ground now, too, like Cosmos, Zinnias, Mexican Sunflowers, Purple or White Hyacinth Bean (vine), Cardinal Climber (vine), and Cypress Vine (red, white, or pink), marigolds, and many other annuals.

And most of all, have fun!

Susan

Dawn I was wondering if maybe Diane had done stole and froze it. LOL. Jay

Jay,

LOL. She wouldn't dare. I told her to leave my brain alone. I need every pitiful little brain cell I have that still works.

Dawn

I was trying to figure out how morning glories and sunflowers where both related hehehe.
I never heard of winter sowing but I'm glad to know that there is such a thing. I was starting to think that I would actually have to wait till next spring to be able to plant some more flowers.
Now I understand why the my snapdragons didn't make it 4 years ago and the ones that I have now are hanging by a thread to make it.(So I think they are snapdragons)
Unfortionatly when I planted the seeds in the little box this year I wasn't paying close attention to what I was doing ( I was so excited I just wanted to see them grow already) and I absolutly forgot what I planted in what box. So right now I see seedling growing but I don't know witch flowers are witch. I looked up online all the flowers that I planted and I think I know witch flowers are witch but there is one that is growing in a little pot and they look so so pretty but it does not match any of the flowers that I planted. I think they might be the batchlor buttons but this plant looks a lot thicker then those that I have seen online. But I am up for the surprise of witch flowers made it.

p.s. I hope everyone is ok after last nights weather.

Maty,

Our summer heat and intense sunlight can be very hard on young flowers, but some years (the ones like last year where we have a cooler-than-average and wetter-than-average summer), I have direct-sown flower seed in May, June and even July and had them grow and bloom just fine. The early July-sown zinnias were in bloom only 6 or 7 weeks after I sowed the seed. Last year, I planted castor bean plants from seed the week of July 4th and had large, gorgeous plants before the end of August. They didn't freeze until either late November or early December. By the time they died, they ranged from 7' to 12' in height. So, you see, even though they were sown late, they grew well and we enjoyed the plants for months.

All things being equal, though, the earlier the seed is sown (within reason) the better for the plants.

Dawn