I set up a light garden with 2 4' 4tube fixtures last spring which did a very nice job starting my tomatoes and peppers and my sweet potatoes too. One is flouro and one set is LED. With the lights on a timer, managing this garden is actually quite easy and with the light down close to the plants this gets pretty close to full sunlight intensity. This fall I decided to try to carry my sweet pototoes and tomatoes over as cuttings. The tomatoes failed, but the sweet potatoes went right to town. I just potted them up to 5" yesterday. The original 5 cuttings all took and I have taken three more from them. Curiously one of the roots had the swellings that look like the start of a sweet potato already. Those 8 got one of the four flats I have space for. Other plants are a flat of onion seedlings that were supposed to bulb up for sets and never have; they just keep growing even with long days. Also I have some Sonatini hippeastrums that fit under the lights and have been just plain fantastic. They started growing by the time their shipment arrived and have never stopped. Most of them are already past bloom and are putting out leaves and showing pups! Never even got close to Christmas. Along with them are paper whites in bulb glasses. I root them in my cool kitchen and once the jar is close to full of those white roots, I move them up under the lights as close as their stretch allows. Most of them are doing real well. Not one of them is limited to a single shoot either, which I never expected. This year I am trying Galalee instead of Ziva which smells bad to some friends, and a couple of the very close tazetta relatives that smell much nicer but are more difficult. I think I will try to hold off on the Chinese Sacred Lilies a while and try to get them up for Chinese New Year. So there is more to winter in Minnesota than cross country skiing and ice fishing. I am thinking about a second 2x4 garden. If I go that route this time I will use all LED. Alternately I would like a lower light garden. I used to grow African violets and the 4x8 is way too much light for them. Every time I pass them for sale, I get the itch all over again.

Awesome Skybird! I will definitely try the "liquid lightning" treatment. I will also be "winter sowing the seeds, well, actually my plan for the Abronia seeds is to artificially stratify the seed in the fridge for about two months, then give them the acid bath then "winter" sow them in March or April hoping the catch the last 6-8 weeks of our freeze/thaw cycle. I might try the more "traditional" scarification (sandpaper/emery board) on some of them, but all the resources I've found on this species has said that it does not seem to improve germination. If I don't get any sprouts of these guys this year, I am fully prepared to wait it out. I've had Palmer's penstemon seeds that I gave up on pop up the following spring in the bucket I dumped the cups out in the year prior. You are right though, SOMETHING triggers these plants to grow, since they do it all the time without any help from us. But, a few species of sand verbena are endangered (this one isn't) which could be a side effect of poor reproductive rates. Others, especially species and populations from the low deserts in California and Arizona, might grow and flower only once or twice a decade during "super blooms." It would seem even mother nature has a trying time with this particular genus. I love your story about the sweetgrass. If you ever feel like you want more, but don't want to wait, you can buy started plants from Prairie Moon, but I think the fact your persistence and patience paid off and you successfully grew what is widely regarded as a "difficult" seed is far and away more satisfying. I think that is part of the attraction for the sand verbena for me. Grasses are typically divided into two groups, the C3 "cool season" grasses and the C4 "warm season" grasses. From your description of it "looking dead" in the summer, I suspected yours was the former and it turns out, it is! Sweetgrass will actively grow in the cooler temperatures of spring and fall and go dormant in the heat of summer. I wonder if you tried putting it outside earlier in the year (like March) or even leaving it outside over the winter (it should be plenty hardy enough) if you would see more growth on it. According to the Natural Resources Conservation Service (NRCS) it starts active growth at soil temperatures of about 40 degrees. If you DO decide to put it in the ground, I also wonder if it would be kept in check by the fact your garden might not be as wet as it typically grows. The Maximilian sunflower that I got from you a few years ago has not spread in the "potters clay" (as you call it ;) that I have it in at my mom's house. It has formed a nice clump and spread MAYBE a foot out from that and I think I planted it in 2015(?). Sweetgrass would be a great plant to have out here, unfortunately I don't know how well it would hold up to the jackboot of rampaging cattails. I haven't found a single plant, even the ones often touted as "strongly rhizomatous" "not good for small landscapes" "could be invasive in a garden setting" that don't get out competed by cattails. Even the prairie cordgrass, which has some of the deepest, strongest and overall toughest rhizomes I ever ever encountered has been reduced to just a few small spots in their wake. Why I'm growing the buffalo gourd, I think it's a cool and unique plant. We're all used to seeing pumpkins or butternuts in the vegetable garden, but to see one growing out in the middle of the dry prairie sprawling in all directions with its huge, blue-gray leaves and big yellow flowers is not something people would expect to find. It's also beloved by our native squash bees (Peponapis pruinosa). While it does have vines like the dastardly bindweed, its a much BIGGER plant (if you look carefully at the second picture, there is some bindweed in the lower-left corner) and doesn't spread through rhizomes. Instead it had an enormous, tuberous taproot. It is edible, well at least it's not poisonous and while the stringy flesh is very, VERY bitter, you could roast and eat the seeds and they apparently just taste like pumpkin seeds. Also, don't forget that cactus are my favorite plants and I have purposely planted Yucca glauca on more than one occasion. I have gone a little crazy with my native seed plans this year. Trying to make up for my abysmal gardening year last year coupled with the severe onset of winter-induced cabin fever has lead me to have some pretty grandiose plans. Luckily most of my seed is stuff I've collected over the years and have on hand, but I have to admit I went a little overboard on purchasing a few as well (including ordering some started plants to hedge my bets). Now the only thing is carving out the time to do it. I think overall I will be winter sowing and artificially stratifying something like 25-30 different species (give or take a few). The thing is, I've never had very good luck with the whole winter sowing thing. My penstemons always wind up drowning no mater how fast draining I think think I've made my mix and other things always seem to sprout WAAAAY too early in their little "greenhouses." I also get extremely spotty germination with this method (which is one reason I plan on starting what will seem like a metric tonne of seed). But they wont be in little "mini greenhouses" this year. Last year I converted a bunch of the gazillion CRW tomato cages I have everywhere into low tunnels covered in landscape fabric. So I'm putting the seeds in starter pots/cups and setting them under these low tunnels. No plastic covering that will trap heat and trick seeds into sprouting to early and the weed fabric will let water from snowmelt and rain pass through as well. I will probably have to take a more active role in supplementing water since there wont be a true "lid" to contain the moisture though, but that should help alleviate the damp off which I have had problems with with winter sowing as well. But the fact is I don't have nearly enough indoor space to grow plants and all of it will be taken up by stuff that really does need it like tomatoes and peppers. Like you said, these plants germinate and grow outdoors in our climate and weather all the time without our assistance so that's what I'm counting on. Besides that, I have TRIED to start native grasses and perennials indoors in the past and while many of them self sow with reckless abandon in the garden, I have never successfully raised a single little bluestem or hummngbird mint or purple coneflower from seed inside under lights. All of them have keeled over well before transplant time. I, too, love starting seeds. Watching the creation of life from but a small hard speck is nothing short of miraculous. “Acts of creation are ordinarily reserved for gods and poets, but humbler folk may circumvent this restriction if they know how" wrote Aldo Leopold, "To plant a pine, for example, one need be neither god nor poet; one need only own a shovel. By virtue of this curious loophole in the rules, any clodhopper may say: Let there be a tree - and there will be one.” I do have to admit that taking care of indoor grown seedlings for weeks and weeks however is not my favorite part of gardening.

Doing a seasonal evergreen floral display in the gas firepit certainly has potential. I'm just trying to figure out why you would shut down a firepit for the winter and why you couldn't burn it in place on Twelfth Night or something festive like that when it is nice and dry.

I sometimes watch it but not in the mode for anything 'super' today LOL. Snow on the boughs of my Redwood 'Soquel'. The plain old American holly berries have been eaten by the birds but so far they are skipping these Highclere Holly 'James G Esson' ones. Fine with me, and Doug Tallamy LOL. (speaking of Tallamy, anybody know what happened to sam_md? It's well known that the 'real' IDs of various people on this forum are known by some members. Perhaps he has departed this mortal coil...if so, we thank him for his contributions to horticulture and our forum) An Abies alba in the foreground with a much larger Abies firma in the background. I will be moving this and another Abies alba from an area they cannot stay any longer. One might be for sale - serious enquiries only. Msg me. I will definitely replant at least one elsewhere on my property. 'Wisley Supreme' with cicada damage still visible on stems.