This winter I have been over wintering seeds in containers. A few of them are: lillies, holly hocks, coreopsis, red/white hibiscus, white/purple angel trumpet, pink mimosa. This is my first try at winter containers and will have been a good experiance whether or not everything works. Here are my containers: These are out in the snow and have been for the last few months. They are on a south wall. I will be putting these in a new flower home in my front yard should this work.
Hi Petunia,, i winter sow every yr. altho i do that with veggies, because i have to adapt them to the climate here. don't let them get to much sun to soon. If so even tho you have them in snow, the sun will warm them up to fast an they will start to sprout, an if your temps there still will be in the 32 deg F. area your new shoots will freeze an die. i would take more snow an cover the containers over, an pack it all around good so the thaw can shake the hulls naturally at the time when your weather is better. like when do you normally have spring,, make your containers last until then, maybe move to a north wall, then bring back a month or so before when its natural for the flowers to start sprouting. i will say they will be tough an stronger than if you started them in the house or a greenhouse. remember the idea is to have them cold, warm just a tad, then freeze repeatedly.. just don't let them get to warm to fast. Good luck, an it will work, you'll see, an start to do this every yr.
Thanks Biita for the advice. Maybe I'll cover them with more snow-my north wall also gets sunshine. Right now we have plenty of snow with a few more inches coming again this weekend.
Holy heck I was thinking snow was no good. I dont understand how it works......But hubby laughs at me. I did it once and it did grow in april ..But we still had cold .. Perhaps perennials only?? b Thanks petunia sand Biita. barb
Winter Sowing Good Afternoon; I also started some containers of seeds about two weeks ago when we had a winter thaw. We never lost all our snow so I think I am okay with this. I did just cover the tops with snow as we had rain today and it removed a significant amount of the snow. One of my containers has hellebores so I think I am not going to worry about that one. The others have hollyhocks, daylilies, clematis, cleome and something else. As you can see I am not a purist about gardening, I love to grow plants and they seem to respond in kind to me. I will let you know how it goes here in Maine. diene
Winter sow, When does Maine get it last frost? ANd have you done this before? Now your all saying snow keeps the frost off? I guess it is a waste here if it goes below 32º ?// what is your zone? Mine is 5 or 6 Depend who your talking to. b
The idea with winter sowing Bsewnsew is to let nature do the sowing. it will freeze the dirt, just like in nature, an keep it frozen until the spring thaw comes. you want snow. snow is good. the lower the temps the better for the plants, as it warms up just a little but still not enough to thaw the ground out, it shakes the seeds an naturally hulls them and at the same time it strengthens that little seed to be able to with stand lower an harder climates. like here. you hope for repeated freeze, thaw, freeze thaw,, thats what happens out in nature, an if you ever seen the "weeds",, nothing kills them short of chemicals,, thats because they go thru all the climate changes of winter. and are stronger because of it. I hope that helped a little.. if not i can try again,,lol. (kind of like the thaw, freeze, thaw, freeze) I don't start my sowing for another month, thats because we don't plant until june when its safe from frost after the seeds have sprouted. altho it has snowed here in july, an because all the farmers winter sow,, our crops pull thru it.
Biita I am a dumb farmer.........I know the story of winter wheat etc..... But they are for winter.. Also rye. Thanks for the advice........The question is .. to sow or not to sow...... YOu say end of february you sow? Let me know it sounds more like me. We put all out in june also.. May 31 is usually safe . b
i see your in pennsylvania,, i used to live in pittsburgh, an we planted in mid may,, so maybe thats when you need to start also,,, in feb.. altho i remember the temps in pa. would be very hot in april. so maybe start sooner...
Winter Sowing Hello Barb; In answer to your question, I am much colder in climate than you are. We had snow before December 1st this year and it is staying for the winter. We will be below zero by Monday. This is our coldest time of year. I harvested all of the seeds I planted from plants I already have. I will wind up giving away most of my yield but I have only successfully winter sowed once before and want to be more comfortable with it as our season is so short. For summer crops we are not supposed to plant until the first full moon after Memorial Day. That makes for a very short season. I will start some veggies indoors in April and if some of our ground has thawed, I will put in peas. They can take a frost, so can radishes but they are not one of my favorites. My brother lives in Lancaster which I believe is a bit southeast from you. My sister is in Erie which is I believe northwest from you. Is that accurate? diene
Our growing season up here is just 2 1/2 months long. but then we have the sun during summer 24 hours aday until about mid august. starting in may. winter veggies can grow until the end of october or first frost, an frost veggies, can grow until mid december. our weather is actually very mild compared to the mainland. our coldest here in F. has been -9 since i been here. living in america i have been in colder climate than this. the difference is in summer our average high temp in F is 65. with the constant north wind which never makes anything get extremely warm. including the ground. it gets warm but not like the rest of the world. so winter sowing is a must here, because it can also be in summer the high temps averaging around 40. that happened my first summer here, an didn't warm up until the end of july. so we need extra strong plants for crops here. Bsewnsew,, my husband got lost in America, an i rescured him,,,
Ladies . . . I have really learned a lot from following along with your conversation. Petunia: I was admiring the pic of all your hard work. How deep should I plant my seeds . . . or does it vary?
I want to know the answer too. Also are you using the bought soil to do this? Might be my mistake.. I used earth on mine that time??? More more more
seeds I will give you my answer to the seed questioins but I will remind you I am not an expert but if you google winter sowing you will find a site written by the woman who first turned me on to this. I used soil I had in the yard, remember the theory is that nature does this all the time so we are not trying to do anything fancy. I covered seeds with some soil but not deep, I believe that most of these seeds fall to the ground and only get what is covered by the wind or leaves so I did not want to put them deep. Small seeds I broadcast on the top of the soil and then covered them with snow (because it was there to use). I probably would not have even tried this if we did not have snow as dry cold does not seem to be the best conditions. I used seeds that were too old to give to someone else which may skew my experiment but they all still looked viable. Really I would recommend you go to Trudi's site and get the right answers before you try this. I have been reading about this for seven years now and did have some success four years ago. Have a wonderful day. Biita, I am amazed at sunlight all day, how strange that must be but it is some consolation for no sun for months, I guess. diene
