This is my first year winter sowing too, but here are the perennial flowers I've sown so far: Marsh Blazing Star, Purple Giant Hyssop, Starry Campion, New England Aster, Wild Geranium, Boneset, Black-Eyed Susan, Brown-Eyed Susan, Joepyeweed, Virginia Bluebells, Yellow Coneflower, Spiderwort, Wood Lily, Harebell, Penstemon/Foxglove Beardtongue, and Red Columbine. These are all U.S. native seeds that need 30 to 60 days of cold, moist stratification. I also already sowed the annuals Rudbeckia hirta and Tall Bellflower...my seed packets say they need 30 days of cold, moist stratification too, even though they are technically annuals, but they are U.S. Mid-Atlantic natives. Hope I didn't sow these too early... I'm going to wait until spring to sow the French Marigold seeds I collected. Can't say yet how well these all take to winter sowing since it's my first year in Milk Jug World, but will post an update later in the year. Good luck with your flowers too!

Hello, I have two comments, one regarding germination and the other regarding rootwad's seed pods. I germinated Lithospermum seeds when I lived in Chicago without any special treatment (just sowed the seeds and watered the pots whenever the soil looked dryish). It took months for the seeds to germinate and I almost gave up on them. Rootwad, lithospermums do not produce seed pods. Rather, the ripened ovary develops into four hard, whitish nutlets somewhat resembling tiny, white stones ("lithospermum" means "stone seed"). There is no pod that opens up with seeds in it. If your plants have an actual pod that splits open with seeds in it, then it is not a lithospermum. Regards, Rufino

I haven't updated since the start of April, so here is what has happened so far. 1) I extended my strip by another 25 feet or so. (I'm calling it Curb2.) I dug it out so that the middle of my strip is lower than the edges, creating a mini-rain garden/bioswale. In the other part of the strip (Curb1), the middle is higher than the edges. This means mulch if forever spilling onto the sidewalk. I bought a bag of 65 bare roots and corms from Costco for about $20. The 50 Liatris have since come up. The 5 Echinacea, and 10 Kniphofia did not. Popsicle sticks mark the plantings. I later added a couple of 'Blonde Ambition' blue grama (Bouteloua gracilis), a common milkweed (Asclepias syriaca), two tropical milkweed (Asclepias curassavica) and one 'Silky Gold' tropical milkweed. 2) In Curb1, I added: *two 'Black and Blue' salvia *two Hill Country penstemon *three little bluestem. (I have so bluestem plants, I don't know what to do with them! I potted up a dozen, threw about 20 in the compost pile. It's a little sad, since it took me a whole year to grow them.) *two Gregg's mistflower *one snake herb (Dyschoriste linearis) *two Salvia greggii--one 'Purple', one 'Nuevo Leon' *one creeping red sedum *eight groundcover thymes--one 'Doone Valley', 7 'creeping' I labeled the milkweeds, so I wouldn't accidentally dig them up in the spring, before the leaves emerge (like I did this year). 3) Things I removed: The red yucca that I had planted in Curb1 was not doing well. I dug it out and it now lives in a pot on my patio. It was replaced immediately with bamboo muhly (Muhlenbergia dumosa). The gaura I planted in the spring died in the heat. My Agastache "Blue Boa", that after looking good all spring, suddenly declined, dried up and died. I tried to save it, giving it extra water, drenching with ammonium sulfate (in case it was cotton root rot), but nothing helped. In it's spot, since I was afraid it might have been a soil borne disease that killed the agastache, I dug out all the soil--about 12" wide and 8" deep--and replaced it with compost and expanded shale. I've planted a 'Mystic Spires' salvia, just last week. 4) Things really started to fill out in June I even got some milkweed blooms! (Asclepias viridis) (Asclepias curassavica 'Silky Gold') (Growth in Curb2)(Please excuse the purslane. I thought I'd try it as a living mulch. 5) Today (Late July) Curb 1 has finished for the summer, and it looking tired. (I believe that I'll get another flush from the Walker's Low catmint in the fall.) I'm impressed with how much the Gregg's dalea has grown (the silvery groundcover in the foreground). Last year, in a different spot, it hardly grew at all, and the nurseryman I purchased the plant from told me that it was a slow grower. I guess it just needed to find the 'right place'! Curb 2 is looking great.

I've seen Hoary Puccoon out on the Hi Lonesome Prairie southeast of Sedalia, MO in a field that didn't look particularly sandy, more just like good ol' upland Missouri tallgrass pasture. It was in an area that had been burned recently, along with various grasses just emerging, Nothoscordum bivalve, Viola pedata, and Castilleja coccinea. So I don't think it needs sand necessarily, but whether some other organism needs to be there seems like it could be a possibility.