Have you thought of outdoor winter sowing given that in your zone winters should be cold enough to stratify naturally? Seems like much less faff to me.

And your time is running out. I started in December. Most things tjhat need stratification need around 8 weeks of cold. By March our cold is about gone (if not gone).

Yes Babs, I did see z7 though...which is what I am (but as you know..that varies, my z7 is much different than that in Vancouver for instance).

My ability to see zone info varies. Previously I just saw Annie, now I see Annie(7). Houzz appears to not like my browser.

I am in Georgia. When I joined Gardenweb, the zone calculator for this site put me in zone 7 and I thought it reported my state too, I'll see if I can edit my name info. My USDA Hardiness Zone is 8A.

I was told that winter sowing is iffy in my area because we can have a warm spell that will lead to pre-mature germination and then a cold snap will come through and the seedlings are not hardy enough to survive the snap. Having said, one of these seasons, maybe even this season, I will try winter sowing with a plant that I have plenty of seeds.

Thanks so much for the link NHBabs, this is a live link, https://tomclothier.hort.net/page02.html .

Dbarron, what are your techniques for cold, moist stratification?

I will try and post a list later today.

Thanks for the input.

Wintersowing :) I've done baggies and pots in the fridge, but it's too much trouble. Our weather isn't constant, but I've never had any issues with it...even if just germinated seedlings freeze solid, they weren't damaged. I grow mostly natives, and they "know" what they're doing with our climate. Even though, first time I had alliums and rudbeckia sprouting in February, and then a freeze, I was horrified, but I let them alone and not a scratch.

@dbarron,

Since you are in Arkansas I assume I can piggyback off what you are doing. I think the operative word is native plants, I have to look at what I am trying to grow and see if they are natives and if they are they should be more forgiving. Heck if they are natives, presumably I can just plants the seeds in the ground or a pot and let Mother Nature do the rest.

Do you winter sow in milk jugs or something else? Roughly how many seeds do you plants and from there how many plants do you end up with, in other words, if your target is to have 5 plants get to maturity, how many seeds did you have to plant?

Thanks.

I used milk jugs though that might not be the best solution (and I am doing it in pots on some things this year and thinking maybe soda bottles for something I'm planting next week), because I was decimated last year by slugs that got in where I cut the milk jugs.

It depends..sometimes you get hundreds of seedlings, sometimes you only HAD five seeds to start with (like some peonies I planted). The goal is usually to get enough that I get seeds to get more (or divide). That's kinda like asking how many kids do you want, and everyone will have a different answer and it's all meaningless to anyone else. And the answer for every species will be different. For me, and for typical things I can expect upwards of 70% germination. Whether a grasshopper lands on the porch and eats them all (happened once) or slugs devour newly sprouted, doesn't come into the picture..that could happen no matter what you do, and has nothing to do with winter sowing techniques/procedures. That is simply the nature of nature.

I haven't done anything seemingless ridiculous like winter sowing tomatos. There's no point for what doesn't require cold (at least to me), though I've read that people do such silly things with tropicals and many respond well to it and germinate when temperatures warm enough). Sometimes I suspect they use the same techniques and plant in March or April and call it wintersowing...thus some confusion.

If you give the outdoors version a try leave the pots in a sheltered spot, but not the warmest. They'll germinate once soil temperatures get to where they want it and usually that works fine, in a warmer spot they may come up too early. Here are some poppies from the first week of March, they look too delicate to survive but were just fine even with our last frost date being May15th.

Try searching the 'Deno Method'. Through the USDA site you can access the warm or cold temp requirements of thousands of species, but I usually just throw everything onto damp paper towels and put them in the fridge for a couple weeks and see what happens.

Here's a great summary by Nan Ondra:

The Science of Seeds

You can buy clear plastic bins for a little more than a dollar. They are easier to work with than milk jugs. A drill with a good bit will make cutting drainage holes easy. I think winter sowing is much easier than doing baggies in the fridge.

There will be something germinating almost every day now (from end of Feb/start of March). Penstemon grandiflora and pimpinella roseum today. Excited!