Where is everyone? [g] VAFlowerNut - Congratulations on getting started. I just started today with my first 10 containers. I've had a lot of columbines in my garden, but they seem to have crossed with each other and after awhile, they were all sort of similar and not as pretty as they used to be. And they were petering out from the dryness of the area they are in near a Maple. So I started more this year, to try to get some better looking plants and more of them.

Good idea to keep the winter sown bottles from blowing away. Usually, we have enough snow and ice that I don't have to worry about the containers moving. [g] Not this year though. I'll check out your page and see your idea book.

I didn't think about that happening to the columbines, I'll have to isolate some of them or cover a few flowers. I'll have to figure that out. We have alot of bad winter winds here, I had the containers on the back porch and had to bring all of them in when the wind got bad and that was at least once a week and that got to be a pain. Stuffing them in the bigger pot is a whole lot easier. I hope you get some beauties Prairiemoon :)

I haven't attempted to intervene in pollination in my garden. It sounds like too much work. [g] You do have a lot of different varieties of Columbine, so I can see why you might want to go to that trouble.

Wind can be a problem and can disturb the seeds if the containers get knocked over once too many times, especially if they are not frozen solid. I've seem some people add bricks to large pots and add their containers to that. I have milk crates that I could use with bricks too.

Good luck, hope you get great germinations!