Hi Ianna,
I, too am trying winter sowing for the first time this year. I have already started with my perennials and some trees.
The site below is a great one to learn all about it and find what is recommended for wintersoing as far as annuals/perennials etc., and the best time to sow them. You can also go to the winter sowing forum (there are two to look at) I like to be on the Canadian one but it is not as active as the other one. LOTS of friendly advice (and pics!) from experienced WSers.

Here is a link that might be useful: WS info

Well, I have a ton of old seed from up to 2 years ago - it's all getting sown. Some under lights, some WS.
WS is great. I did it here when it first began on GW and used it while living in the UK, where my garden sold my home.
Planning on removing another 1/3 of my front grass and turning it into garden for sun. Going to install soaker hoses and water when needed, getting a truckload of dirt for this and backyard veggie gardens.
Perennials started last winter and grown in pots in my 'garden nursery area' will be placed in their permanent location. Purple coneflowers and lupins in abundance - should bloom this year.
Every year I start perennials to grow as starters and plant them in the garden the following summer.
Year 3 of perennials I divide and share with folk in the neighbourhood.
This is an ongoing cycle for me which saves a lot of money.
Having said that, I order seeds from catalogues, ebay and trade to try different plants.
Right now I'm making a database of the seeds I have which I will update as spring/summer/fall progresses to see what grows well in Ottawa. There are microclimates around my house which can affect the general zone level.

More lupins in situ this year. Purchasing munstead lavender by the tray for the new front garden. Spreading apart mini rose buses that I got for next to nothing from a store - offered them $10 for the lot since they looked like almost dead twigs - mini roses are winter hardy in Ontario and bounce back dramatically if given a good bed to grow in. This year they'll crowd each other out. I have about 20 of these that survived from that box.

New this summer will be annual poppies.

I'll post more when I get my seed packets organized.

Cheers,
Peggy

Thanks Grey for the link. It is very informative particularly how to select the seeds for wintersowing. I suppose then that not all annuals can be wintersowed (being that many come from tropicals areas, such as coleus).

Peggy, sounds like you have a good deal of wonderful work to do. Anytime I have a garden related task, I get ecstatic. Is it the same with you? In my case, I have a small front bed crammed to hilt with perennials. It's just over a year old and so this year I will have to vet out plants to make room for new introductions. I am experimenting with using curly leaf parsley as low hedging, partier plants. This year I will focus on design and colour rather than the wild garden approach I took last year. I'm just now beginning to experience the fun of planting annuals because with annuals, you are free to redesign your yard each year. I had until recently viewed annuals as filler plants but now that perception has changed. It's going to be a fun year.

Ianna

Iana,
last year I planted carrots in my front garden - they would also make a good row of greenery as the tops stay green all summer long, less than a foot high.
Just a thought.

I can sort of relate. I have a corner flower bed with roses, cedars, barberry, euonymus etc. A few years ago, I planted two small emerald cedars as I wanted some instant greenery and was living for the moment. I knew I'd have to remove them someday because it doesn't make sense to have two big cedars in that bed (already have a yellow ribbon one that's getting big).

Thus, my plans this year might be to limit my annuals to pots and a few here and there beside perennials. Everything is getting kind of crowded looking.

Last year I tried sort of a tropical theme, so hope to continue that. I had a palm tree, banana, tropical copper leaf shrub, etc. combined with hardy plants that look tropical (big bold leaf plants, variegated plants, or ones with fine ferny foliage.) It was fun to do.

Anyways, I always vow to stay on top of the weeding, but sort of slack off in the heat of summer, but it should be easier if I don't cram things too tight in beds. Of course there's always room for some annuals and there's always a few new introductions that I find tempting.

Glen

I have a extensive acre garden so I continue to work on it everytime we have a thaw or see some bare ground all winter. I try to get things like pruning, raking the lawn and edging the beds done early.

I've sown 16 flats of perennial seeds already in the greenhouse in the last week and some are already up. Lupins, shasta daisies, penstemon, yellow hollyhocks, foxgloves are up and salvias, carex 'Frosty Curls', delphiniums, fringed leaf bleeding heart, lavender, redbud tree and others are close behind.
And I made an order to Veseys yesterday for *more* seed!

A lot of the plants go into my May perennial sale along with a couple thousand more divisions dug up from the garden. Preparing for the sale, which I've held for 7 years, is very time consuming and keeps me busy in the GH and garden for months.

Soon it will be time to prune the wisteria. It began blooming after only 3 years, on an arbour over the entrance to my studio and was magnificent last spring, in it's fifth year.
Then it will be time to prune the apple trees and spray dormant oil/sulfer.

This years projects will be finishing the raised vegetable beds we started in the fall and revamping a large shade bed on the north side of the studio to include a slate pathway and new shrubs and perennials.

Peggy, we seem to be on the same train of thought - carrots and parsley are related plants.

I have to digress. I came across a solar energized Flood Light able to produce strong light. Has anyone tried it yet? I am looking for self energizing products that can produce good accent light - and this quite different from those low glow, moon lights.

Am all setup in the basement

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My seeds arrived today from the Vesseys catalogue

My veggie bed in the backyard, waiting to be rototilled and built up

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Hummingbird area

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HI glaswegian, neat set up. But do be careful. Are you planning to set up water proof trays on each tier? and a rubber matting for the floor. Forgive my concerns, I'm just a tad too naive with respect to DIY units. By the way, I do envy that your place looks so ready and that there's no snow cover in sight.

ianna

Trus me there is snow. The outside pics are from the fall, the inside pics are from a couple of weeks ago. I now have lights on all the shelves, with trays underneath for the water, and a mat on the floor.

The light is also on a timer. I'll start planting my herbs and veggies in March inside and move them out in May

I will try a few new plants this year but what I dont have a clue.The space where I can place them isnt in full sun and I need to look for something that takes partial sun. This is what my yard looked like last year .

Here is a link that might be useful: garden 2007

Beautiful garden brendall! Amazing use of your space..love it!

Wendy

Some of the "new for 2008" varieties I'm seeing in catalogues this year (Jolly Bee geraniums, Sundown and Harvest Moon coneflowers, Treasure Island sedge, some of the fun "winky" columbines, brunnera Jack Frost)were all available through my local grocery store garden centre LAST spring - at really sweet prices (less than $2 for a 2" pot or $6.99 for a gallon pot). I find if you visit a few garden centres it's easy to spot the "new" or "unusual" or "unique" plants that often just get tucked onto a bench. Helps too if the garden centre staff recognize you as a regular customer and point you in the right direction. I, too, get very excited browsing the catalogues making lists of all the stuff I'd buy if money (and space) were limitless - the list travels with me and sometimes I find much more inexpensive pots by shopping locally. By the way I would highly, HIGHLY recommend Jolly Bee geranium. It grew quickly into a lovely, sprawling mass that flowered profusely for July until almost the end of September.

ssflowergirl, where do you shop? Those prices are indeed 'sweet'

Brenda, for partial sun exposure look at Heucheras and Hostas. Both are dear to my heart, particularly the latter, and I have no doubt whatever I'll be adding to the variety of Hostas I grow this year, mostly through trades with other Hostaholics. We have a small suburban lot (50x100) and it's hard to find any spot that is full sun at ground level. Most of our lilies too only see sun part of the day and they just thrive.

Here is a link that might be useful: tour my garden.....

Increasing my pot ghetto with more roses, and using my plot at the community garden for the tennants of our complex as a cutflower garden. I will have one tomato plant for slicing and fresh eating (Nebraska Wedding). This spring will be a good one in the mail: dahlia tubers, roses and seeds. YIPEE!!
Also my parents will be in the UK for a while during peak planting season (mid-April until May sometime) so who knows what THEY are going to come home to! Bwa-ha-ha-ha-ha.

Friends in France sent me 9 lovely iris roots - disguised as chocolate. I planted them individually in pots one week ago and now have about 2 inches of green! They are all alive. I have been really keen to have some irises from Europe - dying to see what they will look like. Like Ianna, I love zinnias and daisies for shots of colour, since my perennials seem to be "front-loaded" - lots of them are done by July 15.

I've just checked the 14 day forecast for Toronto, and except for a couple of nights with below freezing temps. we are going to experience warm temps finally. I'm so excited. I've lots to do with the yard - major design changes and as for plants, I've decided to convert my front and back yard into wildlife gardens - so lots and lots of wildflowers. I'm doing the Matt James thing - Eco gardening.

Oh for those looking for gardening shows. Matt James (BBC channel) has a new show - something about eco gardening (I can't recall the exact title), and sometime ago, there was a show called Garden Confidential (part of the Confidential series). Recreating Eden shows, City Garden repeats, the PBS Channel has Victory garden (mostly a remix of old episodes, but now hosted by Jamie Drurie a well known Australian Garden designer), P. Allen Smith Show also on PBS, sometimes repeats of Ground Force still comes up. All these shows are more to do with garden design and landscaping