You did not harm the seeds you may have helped them. That seed coating has to come off before they can germinate. They are only pelletized fir ease of planting. The coating has to be kept moist to dissolve so mist them daily. That should answer number 1 2) yes if it says just press into the soil that means that variety needs light to germinate 3) I don't know I usually start mine in a communal flat and transplant. The Geraniums, Petunias, Dahlias and Nicotania will have to be separated or some pinched out--I vote fir separation. The lobelia is fine with 3 seeds in a cell. I've never grown Angelonia so I don't know about them. You will have late Geraniums. I started mine in February as I do every year and they only have buds when I set them out in the first part of June 4) The mat sounds good but I'd lower the lights to an inch. 5) My lights are set for 15 hours but I don't think another hour would matter much. 6) I think I've already answered this I hope you have great success

Sounds a lot like my backyard. My garden is highest in the middle, consistently slopes downward, has a somewhat steeper slope (dropping a good 3 feet in a couple feet) about two thirds of the way to the property line, is lower on both sides, but quite a lot lower on one side than the other. I put taller shrubs on the low side, shorter ones on the high side. BUT, I also had much different drainage conditions from one side to the other. If this is true for your friend's situation, then I believe the height of the shrubs is probably only a minor consideration. In my garden the high side has much better drainage, the low side holds water & sometimes lies in water. Plantings had to be quite different from side to side. Both sides are in full sun. For example, the center of the yard and part of the left lower side will grow a pine, the low areas on the right will kill a pine in one season. Finding deciduous plants & shrubs to suit both sides was fairly easy, finding evergreens in my climate was not. Since I didn't want to lose a lot of money experimenting with expensive shrubs and trees for the "wet garden" and a lot of the water loving ones get much too large for my smallish space and I'm a plantaholic anyway, the very low right side has more perennials than the left side, where I have a few shrub roses among the pines, daylilies, and grasses. (BTW, Itea & Clethra will grow on both sides). The perennials on the lowest side, such as water loving iris, are interspersed with a lot of cheap thicketing shrubs, like red twigs, and only a few tall arborvitaes (up the slope somewhat, where it is not too wet) for winter color and to balance the small rounded pines on the other side. Thus the height was more a function of what would grow well where. I mostly used color to unify the area, using a Blue Montgomery Spruce, 3 Crimson Pigmy Barberries, a Purple Leaf Sand Cherry & Purple Smokebush on one side & another Blue Montgomery Spruce, 3 more CP Barberries & 2 Physocarpus Diablo (which tolerate wet clay quite well) on the other side (toward the higher middle for drainage reasons) with a lot of red blooming perennials (quite different ones) on each side. I also used some tall grasses in place of shrubs in both areas, dry & wet and even planted bulbs on both sides, daffodils on the higher side and camassia on the other. Despite the fact that the spaces were different in size, I used a very similar bed shape on each side, trying for some additional symmetry that way, since the plantings were so different. Hope this gives you some ideas of the issues you can have with slopes and dropoffs.

Thanks for asking. He's home & trying to work. He's a rep for a large medical equipment company & works from a home office. Using his laptop is difficult & slow. He's frustrated but his attitude is great. The pain is variable. Sometimes, it hurts sending jolts up his arm & burning but other times it feels numb. He says I don't want to see it &, for now, I'm taking him at his word! He was at the doctor's first thing this morning & I haven't heard from him yet... The kids seem to be settled down. My GD (age 8) is playing nurse wanting to take his temperature & "help" change bandages. :) They moved a couple days after Christmas & not all of the kid's toys are unpacked. She spent half a day in the basement rummaging for her nurse kit. How cute is that?! Her oldest brother wants just Dad to read his bedtime stories & turns the pages for him. Sam (just turned 3 April 1) just points & says, "Pappa has a boo-boo". Kids are amazing. /tricia

Reporting back: Turns out I had small red potatoes which allowed me to do a comparison between the Yukon golds and reds. I sliced the YG in half so they would be the same size as the reds then proceeded according to the recipe. There wasn't an appreciable difference between the two. Personally I like the taste of the YG a tad better. Obviously the reds would be better because of the size. But for me, either would create a successful side dish.