Well, I would say that since plants themselves start dropping their seeds for next year at this time you could sow some now but..not sure what success you would have. I've been collecting seeds, saving some and scattering some in different parts of my garden. I guess we'll see what happens. I don't think you'll necessarily get blooms in the spring/summer. Most of them take 2 years before you see blooms when grown from seed.

Don't know about the blooming, but I take my cues from Mother Nature as well. When she releases the seeds to the wind, I harvest them and broadcast (toss aimlessly) where I want them to grow.

Today, I took half of my sea holly ripened seed heads and buried each one an inch or two below the surface. The other half I will save for the Newbies and a winter sown container or two.

OK, thanks. I'll just stick to WS most of them this winter. I was hoping to get a little growth from a few now so that they'd come back up in spring and bloom. Has anything tried that? I know some won't work because they need the cold to germinate, though...

Leisa

I am sowing seeds now but mostly biennials which will bloom next year: hollyhocks, lychnis, sweet william. I usually overwiter them in small pots sunk in the ground, then replace the old ones in spring. For the lychnis, I will soon scrap my old ones and replace with seedlings I have. If you really want to grow the ones that need a cold period, just place the seeds in the fridge for a while (I have even placed them in the freezer for poppies)and they will flower next year once they have spent the winter in the ground. It may not work for everything, but the beauty of gardening is that we can give it a try. If it doesn't work, we WS them. Good luck!

I'm sowing any hollyhocks I can get my hands on same with Daylilies.

Everything else that can be WS will be except my fall/winter garden which im starting to plant now.

PDSavage,
Have you summer sown holly hocks before and gotten blooms the next summer? I've only wintersown them in the traditional manner and gotten blooms the second year. I was just given some seeds from a plant this week and I've planted half the seeds already, but if I think I can get more blooms earlier, then I'll plant the rest. How long did it take before you got germination? Do you remember?

Martha

Actually there are some seeds that need a warm-cold-warm sequence to germinate. For those, fall (after the triple digit weather passes) is the perfect time to sow. Sometimes that why there is no seed germination with a wintersown container or that the seed directions say may take more than one year to germinate. If you put those seeds out in December, they may not get the warm-cold-warm sequence the first year. You just want to make sure that the containers are not in direct sun enough to literally cook the seeds.