It is to hard for me to quit planting, I am sooo addicted when it comes to planting perennials and annuals! Here in my zone five it stays very warm till October, sometimes November, our weather pattern is so goofed up the last couple years, makes me wonder if we are going to be a different zone in a few more years! I am going to plant marigold & summer-sun sunflower seeds today, time will tell if they have time to bloom..sure hope so. Good luck! Marsha

laurelin, where do you normally get the white heliotrope? I didn't find any last year around here. You can email me off line or post here. Like laurelin, I normally do my annuals in early to mid March. Last year I did petunias, alyssum, godetia, marigolds, celosia, calendula, salvia, lobelia, hyacinth bean, and amaranthus with great success. I tried heliotrope last year but they didn't start to bloom until the end of the season so I will start mine inside real soon. I think it's good to experiment - I've tried almost all my hardy annuals in Jan and Feb and had success and some not. I just find it easier to do the annuals in March since I'm doing perennials earlier and feel I'm guaranteed to have success with the annuals when wintersown in March. Last year I did not buy any annuals except for Proven Winners Diascia 'Flying Colors Coral'. I still plan to purchase this since I can't find these seeds (not sure there is). However I am wintersowing a few other types of diascia - I hope it works since it's my all time favorite annual(tender perennial)! :)

I have grown Somniferum very successfully for many years, but all but one time they where direct seeded. They do best if they are scattered, very early in the spring, preferably on snow, or so I have been told and they did great that way for me. But... If you don't have 1000's of seeds, the chances they will land and grow where you want them too may be low. One thing I did though, which may work for you, is I put the seeds into ice cubes! I missed the snow that year, and thought up a compromise and it worked. I 1/2 filled an ice cube tray with water, put 3-5 seeds per cube in the water, let it freeze, added a bit more water, let it freeze (they tend to float, or at least mine did, this helped get them more into the ice). Then, I went outside, and put about 3 cubes in every spot that i wanted a poppy, and... it worked! There is also a topic started about pipe pots being good for transplanting poppies. perhaps try searching for "pipe pot". I think that the trick to moving poppies is getting them when they are small enough, and making sure you don't distrupt the tap root, which I really think this method could accomplish. I have transplanted very small poppies with great success. You just want to make sure you leave "tons" of dirt around them, use a full sized shovel even and pretend you are moving a 3 year old much larger plant! Perhaps you could do some "lasanga gardening" in spots where you want to plant the poppies. Prepare the soil early, lay down newspaper as a weed barrier, then good potting soil on top to plant the poppies in. Mark the spots so you know to leave them when you weed the rest of your beds. Or, you could sow them with the ice cube method, and put a marker in the ground to remind you of where they are and work with much more caution in those areas. perhaps don't even weed those areas until you know for sure that they are not your poppies!!

Begonia. x hybrida �Dragon Wing� Caladium Dracaena marginata �Tricolor� Strobilanthes dyerianus Tradescantia pallida �Purple Heart� Tradescantia zebrina all sorts of elephant ears (colocasia and alocasia) (not really annuals, like cannas store in basement for winter) musa basjoo (stores in the basement) ensente (same applies as above) philodendron selloum or xanadu (bring in as a houseplant for winter) i highly recommend going to tellys nursery in Troy, its definitely worth the drive if you are not close by. the one on 24 mile road is not as good for tropicals. but the one in troy has EVERYTHING! i swear its like heaven in there. they are open year round.