End of March update

I fully intened on doing a bunch of catch-up posts where each would sort of chronicle a week in my early spring gardening life. Well that obviously didn't happen so now I have to play catch up.
March was a pretty wide-ranging weather month this year. We had snow on the ground in the very beginning, followed by high temps (into the 60s and 70s and some pretty heavy rain in the middle and a big cool down, now more rain to finish the month and the first few days of April should bring temps back into the 70s!

I started the month off wanting to sow some seeds. There won't be much flwoer spending money this year and with the opputrunity to get some seeds thorugh the Hardy Plant Society I thought I'd give it a go. I havne't done plans from seeds in a number of years, simply becuase I have no real room to set up seedling trays under lights inside. And partly because I can get super obsessed and usually end up overwatering and not leavin well enough alone. I love browsing the forums at http://www.gardenweb.com/ and this year I came across the winter sowing forum. So in the beginning of March, even though I was really weeks behind the 8-ball I decided to give it a go.

My very first winter sown jugs set up outside. I started with Hollyhock, Delphineums, Sweet Pea, Columine, and Gold Groundsel. From my limited research most of these seeds require some cold treatment - typically that means cold moist stratification and for starting seeds inside that usually means moist papertowels in baggies in the refrigerator for a few weeks, constant checking and them potting up once they've sprouted. I didn't think that sounded like a lot of fun, but it did make them great canidates for winter sowing. By sowing the seeds outside I'm letting Mother Nature tell the seeds when to sprout. I'm still not sure I'm giving them enough cold treatment being that I on;y just started them in MArch, so I'm not going to be shocked if nothing comes up.







What I was shocked by was this

-My very first holly hock seedlings in just over 10 days!

And now, I have a total of 15 seedlings in 3 containers! These seeds were in my basement for the past 2 years which makes the fact that they even germinated that much more amazing!

On 3/13 (another lovely spring day) I sowed Candytuft, more Columbine (Aquilegia)  and some Burgundy Pincushion (Knautia Macedonia) seeds. So far I have 2 or 3 candytuft sprouts, but I've read that the columbine and pincushion seeds can take a while so I'll be patient.

Then on 3/17 I did some Sweet Alyssum (annual groundcover), Silene Armeria (catchfly/none-so-pretty) and Emilia Javonica (Tassel flower). The Silene and Alyssum seeds were so small I just dumped a bunch in and holy cow - in less then a week I have hundreds of sprouts!

Silene Seedlings

Alyssum Seedlings

And finally on 3./21 I did the last of the winter sowing for March. I did 4 containers of Oenethera (Evening primrose), 3 containers of Nigella Damascena and 1 conainer of Tanacetum Niveum (Tansy). I only got 9 Tansy seeds from the HPS seed exchange and I really want this plant so I really really hope at least some of them germinate. I can see myself really coddling this container/plant if they germinate!

So all in all I'm up to 39 containers for the year. And this is only the hardy perennials and annuals - I haven't even started the veggies or the tender annuals yet (mostly zinnas, marigolds and 1 packet of poppies and 1 packet of calendulas and some others I'm probably forgetting.)

Stay tuned for an early spring walk around the yard :)