Expect the larkspur to come up in the next 1-3 weeks. The plants will form ground hugging rosettes of leaves that will over winter. When spring comes, they will shoot up tall and bloom gloriously, usually with roses and tall bearded iris.

If your stocks come up, and if they don't get frozen back, they will bloom in the early springtime. In zone 7, those can be big ifs. If you wait to sow till spring, though, they don't typically have time to bloom before hot weather moves in and finishes them off. Typically, it is recommended that you set out bedding plants in the fall, or plant early blooming varieties in late winter to early spring.

I also planted evening stock in front of the peas, which is a very nice little plant. It smells really good and only opens at night. I plan to put both in again next year. I started the evening stock from seed and got the regular stock as plants from the nursery.

Stock is non-toxic, but larkspur came up as toxic on the Internet, so I have not tried that yet. I don't mean you can eat them, but they're non-toxic to cats and horses (and I have both).