Yeah, that is what I am thinking as well...the only part I am questioning is the moisture part. Not sure if it is less effective minus the contact with moisture (my climate does not get a lot of winter moisture). Thank you for your response!

just take some of your seed .. and put 2 or 3 pot.. and test viability ...

there isnt really much we can guess.. beyond that ...with unnamed plants.. in an unnamed location.. with no real knowledge of your winter ...

please go to your members page.. and add you location like the rest of us.. or include it in every post ...

ken

I winter sowed perennial seeds and let nature hydrate them as it chooses. My first year of winter sowing I sowed 533 gallon milk jugs. The plants I sowed have grown to maturity over the years and are planted in my various garden beds. I harvested seeds from my established perennials, both full- and part-sun.

Winter sowing allows seeds that need cold stratification to sprout but doesn't harm seeds that don't need it.

I've never chanced letting seedpods remain on plants in hopes they'd self-seed.

I have not had s lot of success sowing seeds, but last fall I decided to try again and to leave cold stratification up to Mother Nature. I planted one half of my wooden flat with Ratibida pinnata seeds and the other half with Echinacea pallida seeds. I left the flat on the corner of my wood deck all winter and last week I noticed about a dozen cotyledons on the Ratibida side of the flat. Wow, I am quite jazzed about this. But no sign of the Echinacea yet. Of course, it's the Echinacea pallida that I really want to mass plant in the garden. I await......

All, just wanted to update on the results of cold stratification. For the seedheads I left on the plant over the winter and then planted in seed trays early spring, I got approx 80 percent germination of pow wow wild berry, pow wow white, and Magnus. no germination of E Tennesseensis. Bummer on that one. Put some of the seeds in the fridge as well and got about the same success rate. Takeaway for me is that for Echs, will just leave them outside for the fall/winter.

And I had no germination of E. pallida. None. Very disappointing. I'll try again. I have one plant of E. pallida in the garden and I have collected the seeds. I'll see if my seeds sprout better than the purchased seeds.