Wantonamara I did a lot of winter sowing this year, I did Maximilian sunflowers, liatris aspera, yellow Mexican Hats, wild red columbine, sweet shrub(Calycanthus), Brown-Eyed Susans, Monarda punctata, ironweed, coreopsis tripteris, helenium amarum, frostweed, desert globe mallow, salvia azurea, globe thistle, gomphrena, Inland Sea Oats, columbines mixed colors, salvia penstemonoides, Engelmann daisy, nodding onion, verbena bonarensis, echinacea pallida, echinacea angustifolia, American beautyberry, and Cup Plant.

You reminded me I need to start some Alamo vines, and yesterday I sowed some salvia coccinea and nicotiana seeds.

BW,great showing. Note , best to seed S coccinea in the fall. They are the odd salvia, in that they like to germinate in cool weather (now) with a bit of cold stratification. The alamo vine took about a week.. The American beauty waited till fairly warm last year before they made an appearance. I have too many white Am. Beaty berries from last year. LOL.I soaked the Desert Mallows for 24 hours and they came up quickly.

Oh I didn't know that about salvia coccinea. I need to set my trays outside them and hope for the best. I'm soaking some Alamo vine and coral vine seeds right now. I should have soaked the desert mallow seeds because only two have sprouted. I was about to give up on the American beauty berry seeds and I nearly dumped out the soil until saw a few little sprouts. I speed some white ones and the regular purple ones. So far my columbine seeds haven't made an appearance.

Agree better to fall sow S. coccinea, though in normal years, it would still not be too late in north Texas. Results can be quite variable by location. Seeds were scattered in this bed on 3/19 and had started blooming by 6/11:

I've procrastinated and left this year's seed trades/purchases chilling in the garage. This is all I have to show so far.... and only because it was out of reach of the pre-emergent:

I'm glad I saved a few seeds of the salvia coccinea since these probably won't bloom. I now know to start them in Fall. I had some growing nicely last year but I think when we had the bitterly cold temperatures, that did them in because they're no-shows so far. I may be getting some seeds to the white flowered salvia coccinea next week so I'll sow those in Fall.

I can't believe that whole bed is salvia coccineas, that's stunning! I've never seen that many in one area before. I have been overrun with dandelions and henbits and they actually compose most of my yard lol.

The idea of using S. coccinea as a mowable ground cover actually comes from Sally Wasowski's book on native Texas plants. We intended to use it as a temporary cover in the front while the very tiny aromatic sumac starts filled out to their 6 to 8ft widths. This mid-October photo would have been after 2 or 3 summer cuttings:

That's a very clever idea. Is that area amended or is it just clay soil?

You are always insisting you're not, but you are a very good plant mommie!

Lets not bring up all the dead agave and cactus these last years and failures at establishing trees.

Wow that's a lot of babies! I'll have to post pictures of mine later. I also hover over mine and sometimes I check twice a day to see if there are any sprouts lol. Yesterday I found some wild red columbine seeds had germinated, it took them 19 days.

Only twice a day! My husband laughs at me about my hovering helicopter mom act. This is only about a third of them . I have another multiple flat cluster more in the sun .for all my grass seedlings. They I try to keep myself from pulling the stuck seed husk off the alamo vine and wafer ash babies. So far , I have been gentle enough and not pulled the leaves off in the process.

Nice to see such a wide variety doing well for you. Do you do anything special to keep the critters from disturbing them? Squirrels regularly dig up 30%+ of any soil-filled pots we set out. Becomes less of a problem once the plants are up - must be something about the bare soil that really strikes their curiosity.

Blackwillow, We put the s. coccinea on unimproved clay because that's what Wasowski recommended; said with improved soil and fertilizer would get too "big, coarse, and ugly" for groundcover. Would improve a little based on our experience - root structure and drought tolerance seem to get much better with just mildly improved soil.

Wantonamara I have to admit sometimes I check three or four times a day but it's somewhat rare lol. I sometimes feel the urge to pull seed husks off but I've broken so many seedlings from that. Now I just give the husks a spritz of two of water to help soften it enough for the seedling. I have clumsy hands anyways lol.

Bostedo thanks for that information. When I grew the S. coccinea last year under my cedar trees I had added some decomposed granite and compost to the area. Though I planted them in late Summer they surprisingly did well with limited water. I'd love to replace part of my lawn with S. coccinea.

I don't have squirrels around here. I think I saw one about 5 years ago. When it gets a lot warmer and dryer, toads like to hunker down in the 4" pots,... irritating . I throw them out into the yard. I am a mean protective mom. The screen is to keep my cat from lying down on that large pot. Later I might take out whatever is planted in the pot and let it be a yard bed for the cat. She likes the cool damp earth to lie on when it gets hot. I have been unsuccessful in discouraging her So I will get another pot..J Those wide pots are ust her size.

One year I had a toad in one of my pepper seedling pots. It has crushed the seedlings and didn't mind me moving the pot around. It was funny because I don't notice it at first until I saw it's eyes. Squirrels are constantly burying acorns and pecans in my pots.

I have good news, quite a few salvia coccinea seeds sprouted. I may start a few of the Snow Nymph one to see if those sprout too?

Great. It is cold this morning. Maybe they liked it.

I think so because it was 42 here and today it's only going to be 56 for a high. I already miss the mild temperatures lol. I went ahead and sowed a few of the Snow Nymph seeds and set them outside. I also sowed some Kiss-me-over-the-garden-gate seeds. I think those need some cold stratification so I went ahead and put those outside too.

I wait till the ground is warm to plant other salvias.

I recently got some salvia superba and salvia nemorosa caradonna seeds that I'll winter sow next year. I forgot to post pictures of my seedlings.

Brown-eyed Susan

Coreopsis tripteris

Cup Plant (Silphium perfoliatum)

Desert Globe Mallow

Frostweed

Engelmann Daisy

Maximilian Sunflowers

Here are a few more.

Carolina Allspice

Salvia azurea

Rattlesnake Master

New York Ironweed

Nodding Onion

Monarda punctata