Perhaps we should do a twin seed sowing and compare notes - I can arrange seed and we could do some swapsies if you fancy?
My connection to Plantworld seed seems to have gone down so I cannot check their selection but I should be able to get my hands on cambedessii seed....... and, believe me on this, they are easy to grow. All you need do is fill a 3litre terracotta pot with some good soil - any mix with a bit from your garden will do (for the micro-life) - then place pot against a wall where it won't get bright sun, won't get kicked over.....and wait 4 - 5 years. Paeonies do that thing of germinating underground (hypogeal) so you wont see a shoot for a couple of years. You won't have to do anything else as long as the pot can get a little moisture now and again - you don't need to make a special effort, just let it get rained on. Or, even better, simply sow the seeds in an allocated part of the beds which will not be disturbed, dug about and just wait.

Funnily enough, these seeds which take a few years to get going are often the easiest to grow - (I had a monocot fad a few years ago which are all coming to fruition this year)......they are the ones which invariably germinate, never need potting on, grow in their own sweet time.....like the seedlings in your garden which just seem to appear.
- all that is required is time.

True, I would be lost without the interweb. Gardeners learn from other gardeners and isolation (in your case)and terminal shyness and grumpiness (in my case) means that without the web, I would still be back in gardening stone age, messing about with pansies and petunias. Obviously, books have been my (and probably your) salvation.....but you just don't get that back and forth, refining and defining interaction that you get online.

I'll bet she did! That is kind of what you are missing (although adolescents do actually emerge from their self-absorption eventually - all 3 of mine are now proud gardeners) It was almost pre-ordained that eldest, most geekily Asperger's affected son would take to it.....and daughter did that squatting in London, making mini-gardens everywhere (supplied by me) thing. Youngest son was a bit more resistant.....but a few carnivorous nepenthes and sundews.......and the hook was in. Patience - osmosis works exceedingly well in this situation.......and truly, when the emotional storms of parent/child relationships blow over, there is nothing so soothing than having long plant chats.

So yep, seeds. Having a seed confederate is thrilling (eldest son is a division and cuttings fiend and daughter hasn't got round to it yet.....and probably won't as she is super busy). We won't tie ourselves into promises and appointments.....but when summer is ending, I will be thinking of you when I am romping around with a basket of little envelopes.

Strobilanthes atropurpurea, a plant new to me, seen on a rare birthday visit to our botanics, is finally germinating, along with a few others completely new to me this year (it is so easy to take risks with seeds) - a couple of flaxes - Linum arboreum and L.rigida are poking up, along with a slew of aconitums and some frankly bizarre delph types (D.requienii)......while I am hoping for blooms on the tritonias, species glads, allium narcissiflora, dierama, and ....freesia (unbelievably and almost forgotten)......although many of the tree seeds are still proving reluctant (am going to blame our snowless and non-freezy winter and hang on for another year). No sign of astrantia maxima, illiamna, or glaucidium......so I have done what I always do when faced with problematic germinators - ignored the pots, shoved them to the back shelves and sown another tranche of dead easy foxgloves and wallflowers, as well as leeks and broccoli. Doing a bit of direct sowing (emptying out old annuals) and planting potatoes all this week (actual hard work!). We only ever eat chips from our potatoes......so, like the first asparagus, the first sweetcorn - the first frying is an orgy of gluttonous eating, with heaps of salt and vinegar. Folk laugh at the culinary prowess of the English.....but we defer to no-one when it comes down to fish 'n chips.