Anyone start their own seedlings anymore?

[happystuff]

They look great! These are peas for eating, not floral sweet peas, right?

Yes, peas for eating.

[Tybee]

Volunteer sweet peas?? So cool. I started a lot of them this year and they are about an inch high. It is real cold here, was 45 the last two mornings. Not real sunny yet, either.

[rosarugosa]

Lessons learned from 2022 seed planting:
Mexican Sunflowers (Tithonia) were the best thing ever! Easy to germinate, loads of flowers, plants taller than me, pollinator magnets, and they are still covered with flowers. Definitely will grow again next year.
I had no luck with sunflower "Royal Flush," my seedlings died off shortly after transplanting into the ground.
Also not much luck with Early Sunflower (Heliopsis), but might have done OK in a sunnier spot.
Sweet peas - I finally got fragrant blossoms very late in the summer, but only white ones. I'll try again next year with some of the colored varieties. They do indeed have a delightful fragrance.
Zinnias - these did quite well in the ground and not so well in containers. I liked the 'Benary's Giant Mix' and didn't much like 'Cupcake Mix.' Another pollinator magnet.
Cosmos - I would have done better to direct sow these since they don't like to be moved. I loved the 'Sunset Orange Mix.' the 'Sunshine Mix' all got munched by resident herbivores. My orange ones did well in a large container (shared with the sweet peas) and I think that's what kept them from getting eaten; they were a bit high off the ground.
It's funny to me that orange, which is my least favorite color, has become one of my favorite colors in the garden. I loved my tithonias, butterfly weed, firecracker plants, orange lantanas and orange cosmos. It's a color that does great against a backdrop of greenery and works nicely with our dark brown house with cream trim. Live and learn!

[nswef]

rosa, Our experiences are similar. Only one or two of the Tithonia took, but what a great flower!! I will order more of those seeds. My sunflowers just don't make it. Sweet peas were full of leaves and not a single bloom. I had read that heat causes that problem...I think I'll trim them next year if they get too leafy and see if that forces them to bloom. You might like nasturtium.Ours were very leafy, something ate the tops and the blooms began wildly! They've provided color since August. I, too, am enjoying the orange colors. Not my favorite color at all...I tend toward pinks and blues. But the way they attract butterflies, bees, goldfinches, hummingbirds and their contrast with greens has changed my preference. I'll still love heliotrope, larkspur, flax for the lovely blues. 4 o clocks are fun, too. I'm in Maryland Piedmont area. Zone 5-6.

[iris lilies]

Excited to finally, next year, direct sow cosmos, tithonia, zinnias.

from decades ago I remember growing sunflowers and yes they were successful, so successful that they dropped their seeds into the ground. And the following year the old species sunflower emerged from the ground, far removed from the interesting hybrid I had purchased. And those damn sunflower seeds hung out in the ground for a couple years after.

[rosarugosa]

NSWEF: Isn't it funny that we both feel the same way about orange? I too prefer pastels, but I'm realizing that different colors have their place, and just because I would never want an orange dress doesn't mean I don't love tithonia! I tried nasturtiums a very long time ago, and they were a real aphid magnet, but I should give them another shot. I had two sets of "surrogate grandparents" on my street growing up, and I remember loving Ernest and Lisa's nasturtiums so much. In fact, these 4 grandparent figures really did a lot to encourage my love of birds and gardening. I'm north of Boston, but we are also in zone 6.
IL: sunflowers are much beloved by our resident herbivores, so I've had limited success ever bringing them to maturity. I have a rusty metal sunflower sculpture in my front garden that does very well though!

[pinkytoe]

I was just out cleaning up my forest of cosmos. I did not plant them but every year they come back thicker and thicker all along the driveway. A riot of mostly pink and white which clashes with my rusty brick house but the bees love them. I have been working on a rock garden where the spruce trees fell this past winter so planted a lot of the natives I grew from seed in that area. So many veggies did not even do their thing until August this year. DH says I move plants around like furniture which I am certainly doing as time goes by and I learn more about what actually grows here. I envy this of you who have rain.

[lmerullo]

I did end up pulling the tomato. Once it started faltering, I never saw another flower let alone fruit.

My zinnia were from plants and they seem to have self seeded even though I don't think it's end of season.

I planted some sunflower seeds and when about six inches high transplanted into the ground. They all failed.

Dill also came up and the died.

Such

[KayLR]

My zinnia are still going strong. I go out weekly and prune them down and they keep rewarding me with more flowers.

I grew Mexican sunflowers for the first time, too. I loved them, but they seemed a bit pokey. Right when I was about to give up on them, they bloomed!

I had gargantuan sunflowers. One we called Jack's Beanstalk had a huge stalk; I couldn't reach grip around it. My favorite flower of the season was definitely Icelandic Poppies (Papaver nudicaule). So cheerful swaying in the breeze, and the colors are so soft.

My only flower failure: milkweed. I don't know why I cannot seem to get it to grow. I'm gonna keep trying.

[catherine]

My milkweed are bursting. I want to seed our lakeshore buffer to make it pretty. Any advise from you all?