I put my bachelor buttons on tuesday..also some sunflowers and clarkia, but I put 2 litre tops on them. (Used a hole punch, and anchored them with a bamboo skewer like a tent peg to keep the squirrels out). Glad I protected, because we had frost wednesday and thursday. They're doing fine in their little plastic "cloches".

Today I planted the first container with Forget-me-not, around 75 spouts in that container. Tomorrow I'll do the Bachelor Buttons and Dame's Rocket that is so crowded in that container. I was thinking to do all the poppies but they don't have the true leaves yet.
Is it safe to plant the perennials and leave them in the ground overnight without protection? Now I still cover the containers with a big plastic tarp at night, after I lost half of balsam garden and half of amarathus.

I am still a little anxious about planting out because we are still having some cool nights and my annuals are the most advanced, especially my zinnias and sweet peas. Besides, no one in Ottawa plants anything before the Queen Victoria weekend. I was in Home Depot today and they don't have half their plants in, so I'll wait a bit. I also have to prepare a new space for my annual garden. Taking off a little bit of the lawn. Can always re-seed in the Fall.

I'm jealous. We can't even safely think about planting out until the end of May. I'm so tempted though. Maybe I'll just get some sweet peas in the ground and that will satisfy my urge.

It's so tempting isn't it!! My first year WS & the results have surpassed my expectations. The containers are bursting at the seams .. especially the poppies. As a result I'm afraid that they are close to choking each other out. I did transplant my lupins into individual pots (53) because they were just growing so strong and I didn't want to take that chance. The lessons WS has taught me has spilled over into "seed sowing in general". I'm now experiencing successful results germinating seeds where there was previously only...failure.
I sowed sweet peas in pots with 95% germination. I'm holding half the seedlings while I did an experiment and planted out the other half. So far they've shown no transplant shock and are looking strong. The ones left in pots are telling me I planted them too early to hold them much longer. So they're going in the ground too.
Temptation or necessity!!?? It's both for me. lol
Happy gardening everyone. Keep sharing your gardening adventures!!
KanuK

Yesterday was my day off and for a change the weather was half decent! I put in a few things......I planted the one area that I had the garden ready. Believe me it isn't a huge area, but I put in lychnis 'salmon; verbena bonariensis; verbascum 'white blush'; lychnis red shades and foxglove-dwarf carillon (yellow). The area already has several lilies and a peony and an echinacea double decker(a seedling that I received last year and thought that I had killed when I stepped on it after planting it!)
It feels good to actually be starting!
gg

gg- It sounds like you're getting a good bit of planting done. I can appreciate it when you say it's not a huge area... I know now that it still requires lots of time to plant, etc.
This is my first spring planting an organized/designated area. I've started slowly but have tons of planting left to do. Most of my winter sown babies will end up in this area now as a nursery/holding area. I'll mix in annuals for bloom & colour to satisfy my need for flowers while waiting for my WS perennials to mature. I'm straying from my original "game plan" but I'm enjoying it nonetheless ... sore back, mosquitos & all!!!
Keep us posted on your progress and ... happy gardening.

I've been plopping and running, using the 'Spartan Baby' theory. If they can't stand being out on the cold, cold ground, then they don't deserve to live...Ha!

No really...I have so much stuff to get in the ground, I'm using HOS on so much that I would normally prick out and put into a bigger pot, but this year, I can't be bothered.

My seedlings are so small, due to the cold, and I don't feel like babying them anymore.

I also have a "dud ghetto" now set up out of sight behind the shed..so many this year, but I'm not ready to dump yet.

Lots of seeds just didn't germinate. I'm going to rethink how much I sow next year.

Hope it warms up sometime soon! My sunflowers have been the same height for three weeks!

Wendy

Full force planting out here too. Done most of the containers using Al/Tapla soil recipe from Container Gardening Forum.
Went to Toronto and Niagara to warm up my bones, not a chance, but came back with the ingredients for container soil.

I'm planting in the ground everything that has a decent green, and at least first set of true leaves; due to cold weather some are so pathetic looking yellowish/brownish/purple leaves.

Still babying the rest of them for the next few days and everybody will go in the ground as soon as possible, I mean as many as I can do a day. About heights, colours, time of blooming, who has time for that? I will laugh later or cry(?) trying to move them around...if they will survive the cold.

Wendy, how long did it take you to get your garden to the perfection it looks? I'm drooling every time I'm seeing your garden pictures.

This was my third year wintersowing. I've come to realize that perennials are the best bet. They don't look like much the first year, but each successive summer they look better and better.
I think I'm going to give up on some of the exotic, expensive types of seeds. I paid 3.99 for Himalayan Blue poppy seeds and nothing happened. I have way more germination from the hand picked and shared seeds from the good people here than any "flights of fancy" I may find at the seed rack. (Thanks Tiff for all the lychnis..they get better every year!)
Spring was/is so bad this year that my annual seedlings are dying in the ground as we speak. I'll probably direct sow any leftover seed I have this weekend, when "they say" it will be 19-20 degrees.
Glad I wasn't a newbie this year or I would've given up!

Here's my original bed in 05
{{gwi:530173}}
expanded in 06 for all my new babies
{{gwi:351775}}

Here's last year, with another island bed added to have the arbour connect two beds.
{{gwi:541218}}
That was a bit of a "monster mash". I'm going to try cutting down the shastas and sea hollies so the don't take over the whole bed this year.

Wen

Wendy, your garden is gorgeous! The progress of this garden is amazing, you have the taste and talent for gardening. Thanks for sharing your pictures.
This is my first year WSing and I consider it quite a success so far. Those little seedlings are already filling in so many bare spots.
About shastas I understood it can be cut or pinched late May to early June, pinching seems to yield a fuller blooming plant than cutting. Pinching the stems on the outside, and stake the inside ones will look even better.

Mariana

I am new to WS and feel that it has been very sucessful. Even when we got snow on Monday the seedlings in their plastic pots didn't loose any ground.I have planted out some lettuce and arugula and they are just going ahead in leaps and bounds. But I do hope this cold weather is over soon.

I'm still not planting out yet. I've been 'digging out' perennials and weeds, doing some prep work. I've even had to bring inside trays that have been hardening off because of frost bite to the leaves earlier this week as one night the wind chill was -1C. They were even covered!
The annuals may go in this weekend as it is warming up again. WS perennials may need more time to grow a sronger root system.

It has been so cold and rainy, but I have managed to plant some poppies (black carnation and single pink), some pink snapdragons, and some rudbeckia hirta-autumn colours, shepherd's scabiosa and some siberian wallflowers.Oh and some blue flax! :) So much more to go!!
gg

I have been waiting to plant out because we have had such cold, rainy, overcast weather for the last 10 days or so. It warmed up a little today, so I have been preparing my beds which are in a mess because of some wild cats which have been living under our shed during the winter. Their mess is in every bed, and the smell is unbearable. I am trying to keep them out with black pepper and orange peels, and that seems to be helping, but I don't how I'll get rid of this awful smell all around. They completely destroyed all but one of my foxgloves with their digging, and all but two of my verbascum. The remaining two are really struggling. I am thinking of removing some of the soil, bagging it up, and replacing with new soil. That way, the smell will be gone and apparently that's what attracts them to the same place. I still have a lot of grass to remove from one little flower bed, and a little expansion bed to finish, but once that's done it'll be full steam ahead with planting out. I was surprised that some of my laggers that came around once I put them in full sun - Cannas and Datura metel, as I recall. I lost a container of 4 different types of poppies and direct-sowed them about two weeks ago. To my surprise, they all sprouted this week, so now I know they don't need a cold period. I also sowed my snow peas and hope they'll come through O.K. I think most of us in Ontario are in the same boat. Looking forward to a warm weekend.
Northerner.

Northerner, can you get Dettol where you are? It is a disinfectant and is great for deterring cats from using your place as their own personal toilet. Several years ago I heard on a gardening program, that if you mix it up on a ten to one ratio ( ten ounces of water to one ounce of Dettol) or more if you need a larger amount, and sprayed it on whatever cats were using (garbage cans bushes, soil, etc.) that it would keep the cats away. I told my daughter who was having a lot of trouble with the cats next door using her garbage cans as their bathroom, and it worked great! The cats stopped using the cans and moved to the bush in front of her porch :).......she sprayed the bush and they moved out of her yard altogether. It really worked. I used it on my basement windows that were being sprayed by the neighbourhood cats.
It has a disinfectant smell but it doesn't last long and it certainly smells a lot better than cat pee/poop, and it is a disinfectant so you know that it is a lot cleaner too! :)
gg

ARGH!! Anyone else got an aching back already!!? In spite of the cool, windy, rainy weather I'm still finding oodles of things to keep me busy. For whatever reason I seem to be continuously creating & preparing new planting beds while I wait to plant out. Already I don't have near enough WS babies to fill all my beds but I keep digging anyway. What's with that?? Somebody stop me!! LOL
As far as planting goes ... I've been planting WS poppies on & off for about a week now as weather permits. I gotta say that these WS seedlings are very strong and healthy. Even the HOS I've plopped in the soil have continued to grow in clumps. They show no signs of death due to crowding out and really seem to take off once planted out.
Let's hope for some nicer weather this weekend. Seems we're all waiting for it.
For those who have experience with WS/gardening .. is planting out behind schedule this year in general? I feel like I'm behind and I don't know why because I've never done this before.
Happy gardening everyone!!

I did get some planted last night. It was very warm (humidex of 33) and a forecast of rain over night so I thought that it might be good to get something in even though not all my gardens are ready to be planted! :) I planted the one and only plant I got from the pot of hollyhock 'creme de cassis' which is about four inches tall. I put it behind a small piece of 'black lace' sambucus and put lychnis lumina 'red shades' in front of the sambucus with foxglove 'dwarf carillon' in front of them. It was fairly warm over night but the forecast is for a wind chill of -1 tonight. I had put out a lot of my houseplants and overwintered plants and now I will drag them all back in today after work*****sigh*****. I can't believe all the 'ups and downs' we have been having with the weather this year! :)Oh well! it has to even out sometime....right?

Haven't been on for some time. Greylady, thanks for your info about the Dettol. I used that years ago for soaking diapers before washing them. It should be still available so I'll look for it. I replaced most of the soil in the fron bed, but it's too much in the back. Today I was tilling, and it was horrible. Today was the first really warm day and I STARTED PLANTING OUT!! I planted out my red and yellow Cannas, cosmos (2 types), cleome, dianthus deltoides, penny blacks, and one tomato. Most of the morning was spent moving hydrangeas - they have migrated around the side of my patio and I need the privacy in front so I moved them. The snow-peas and poppies I direct-sowed are doing fine and my chives and Irises are ready to bloom. Summer is really here!!
Northerner.