Brad, I'm going to have to do the same with my foxgloves, and some others. Are you going to try to separate them into smaller HOS and repot them or put them into your flowerbeds or containers? I've been hardening off some of my more mature seedlings when it is nice and warm. Today, it reached 70 and I opened up about a dozen milk jugs and let them breath fresh air until about 4:45 pm and I retaped them back up. I will be planting out the Calif. poppies and several others that are outgrowing their milk jugs. Plan to keep the top of the milk jug to put over the seedlings at nights to protect them from the dropping temps and deer.

Much easier and faster to plant hunks, and they look full and pretty as they grow.

Foxglove
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Larkspur
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Karen

I'm in Zone 5/borderline zone 6 and I have been planting out things HOS. Of course, I'm planting my veggie garden and everyone says its too early. I planted out African Daisies, Chickory, Shasta Daisy, Blanket Flower, maybe a few others two night ago. I've learned that if you have the right moisture content the entire chunk comes easily out of the gallon milk jug (I had a horribly time with this last year!). I also planted out some cauliflower but divided out the individual plants - 48+ out of one jug! - and the leaf lettuce. I'll try to upload some photos later.

I will be seperating them into smaller hunks. I might put them into plastic cups or small flower pots because I'm going to share the bounty of my winter sowing. Going over the garden in my mind, I'm running out of room to plant lol.

All my containers have their tops on but some have come loose and I took some off yesterday to let them get a little fresh air and I forgot to put them back on....now it's raining. I hope I didn't drown those few containers. I did punch plenty of holes so I'm not too worried.

Karen, I love the pictures!

Brad AKA Moonwolf

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The flowers I planted out in my holding bed area.
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The leaf lettuce next to the cauliflower.
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The cauliflowers

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Anise - something my husband wanted me to plant because it smells like licorice.

Im anxious to see what my foxglove is gonna look like,I cant remember what I wintersowed last year but it didnt bloom this year the plants are taking off..Very pretty, Karen

I guess we need to wait until those HOS have their second set of leaves before we try to take them out of the milk jug? The hardest part is figuring out how to get that out of the milk jug without damaging the seedlings. I have to wait now till it stops raining to analyze the next move and if I can transplant them easily enough. Maybe I'll find a plastic knife and try to cut the HOS into sections?

Pippi21, I started planting out today and had no trouble getting them out of the jug. I spread my left hand so just the fingertips are touching the soil between the seedlings, then tipped the jug completely upside down so the soil came out in one solid square. Then I flipped them back over into my hand and broke into chunks (although I cheated on a couple of them and just planted the whole square). I think the key is having fairly moist soil.

Hope that helps!

I envy all of you Zone 7 folks with warm temperatures. I must be on the wrong side of the tracks in Zone 7 (Cape Cod, MA) - been cold during the day and most mornings there is frost on the top of my containers.

Dorothy (Meadows)

Yesterday was such a beautiful day here, after having 2 in. of rain the day or two days before. I planted some of my most overgrown seedlings out, hoping for the best. It got down to 44-46 degrees(depends on which outdoor digital thermometer you look at!)The seedlings were still so wet. The Calif. poppy seedlings from my gal. size jug, I pulled apart and seperated still in HOS. The morella cherry lupine I was able to do same but the potting mix was still quite wet from all the rain we had. Today is supposed to another nice day. I have been hardening some of the taller seedlings in the shade. Should I be exposing them to some early morning sun for a few hours each day before I go ahead and plant them in my flowerbed?

So glad someone posted this question. Last year I had a packet of seeds called a perennial mix. Planted them out HOS because they were small and dense. Only one or two were first-year bloomers. This year, they're fighting for space with each other. Should I separate them? They're not all one variety, like Karen's gorgeous foxglove, and I'm afraid they'll choke each other out. Any advice?

Caryl

caryltoo-if yours are fighting for space already, I would split them now. Dig up the batch, and separate by hand into smaller chunks.

Last year I planted a similar mix of seeds . Something I grabbed from the dollar store, called "shade mix" of perennials, WS'd them, then transplanted at the end of the year into the flower bed. This year they are coming up gangbusters.

I'm going to wait another couple of weeks to see how they're doing, but may split them this year, too, into more bunches and spread a few more feet apart. If they look too tight by the end of this year, I will probably split them in the spring next year again. I'm too impatient to wait for plants to get to full size, so I tend to plant close together to see a more full area, then separate later when they start crowding.

I can't even remember what was in the mix, but I did save the label so I can check to see what to expect. That's part of the fun of it!