25+ flowers to winter sow in 2025. Winter sowing success can depend much upon which flowers you decide to grow. Many are suited naturally to this method and I share which ones should give you the best results. This is not an exhaustive list but it can help you get started!
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Hi, I am Pamela and I garden in the mountains of Northern California. Though I am in Zone 8, I have a short growing season and many challenges that I overcome. I love to talk gardening and share my small, compact, and jam-packed gardens with everyone!
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15 Comments
I’ve been prepping my milk jugs! Can’t wait. This is my 2nd year to Winter Sow. Thanks for the info.
I live in Northern Lower Michigan. I love this type of video. I am ready to get going for 2025 and winter sowing is fun. Do you heat your green house? Thank you
I’m in zone 8a GA. My snapdragons I planted (not from seed) grew and flowered all year round for 6-7 years (strange, but I guess it was a happy location and planted at the optimal time). I was so surprised bc the can said annual. I was a newbie at the time and it was so surprising. They remained until I got annoyed with the same ole snapdragons and finally yanked them out in Spring when I decided to widen and redesign the front garden bed. I however in fall planted new snapdragons in the back, apparently I thought I was over snapdragons. That was a lie 😂.
I want to plant milkweed for Monarchs, but research of multiple varieties, says it’s invasive as heck and so I’m staying away, sadly.
I have all these seeds I purchased this Fall and it’ll be my first time using seeds, so I’ve been hesitant on getting started bc I just want to direct sow all of them, but the heck with it. It’s all a learning experience. If I fail I’ll just adjust and try again. Thanks for the videos.
I winter sow in 1 gallon nursery pots tucked under a mini greenhouse. There is lots of room for roots. I do have to water but we’re pretty arid so I would anyway. Looking forward to starting after the holidays!
thanks for the tips. i need to try this. thanks for sharing with us. hope you have a great day!!!
Yes, once these flowers get started they will happily reseed on their own. It’s best to have open ground around them so they can land on dirt and not heavily weed filled areas.
I was just observing yesterday snowbirds eating liatris seeds. That is one reason I don’t clean the flower beds in fall and the other is the vegetation provides winter protection for the plants and wildlife. This morning I noticed they picked the stems clean already. It is also another flower to winter sow.
Had huge success with winter sown Amish Cockscomb this last year.
Because we had 2 years that our winters were extremely warm I had to change how I winter sow in Z5a, WI. I start the seeds later like late February to early March and place the jugs on the east side of the house. Once I know the temps have stabilized where we no longer are getting freak cold spells I move them to south side of the greenhouse/building.
What was happening in those warm winters is we had rain and 52F and then some single digit temps mixed in. The seeds were germinating too soon in their artificial environment and some rotted because if they were in full sun the containers weren’t staying frozen.
I’m happy to say I had complete success—even canna seeds germinated 🙌🏼. This year (Winter Solstice) we have snow right now and swinging between -11 with a real feel of -17F 🥶 to next weekend back to 40s 😮! Just when you think our winter will actually be Winter. Then generally we get a cold snap mid January to February and snow. This weather can continue just when you want it to be spring and makes winter drawn out. Those extreme temperature fluctuations are what killed many winter sow projects. One January it was pouring rain 🌧️ 😮—unheard of! The cold snap was brief that January to February with more warmth and that did those seeds in as I had them in full sun and on some days they were cooking—then SNAP—Frozen. So I looked back at my garden journal and found this extreme change happened in February.
Another failure could be using different containers with separate pots inside a tote as the volume soil and hot air can upset the balance of the environment needed. Many seedlings either germinate too soon or dry out.
Hope that helps some understand why winter sow wasn’t successful. The weather is making gardening tricky.
We have a beautiful hoar frost going on right now on this beautiful sunny Winter Solstice Day!
I’m enjoying ACTUAL winter even if it might be short lived ❄️☃️❄️
Merry Christmas 🎄, Happy New Year 🎉
Brilliant thank you. A mild and windy winter so far here in Ireland but going to try some of these anyways.
wow just found you on your blog lot of things to see
I appreciate your videos, thank you💚You mentioned snapdragons, which group of snapdragons are you referring to? I just ordered some from group 1, but didn’t realize I could winter sow snapdragons in general. What fun! 😍
🌿🌻🌿🌻🌿🌻🌿🌻🌿
I’m going to be trying out using the big salad containers for winter sowing delphinium and some cool temp veggies this year 🙌
Great info
I've been saving up my tea jugs all year, and this will be my second season sowing seeds in winter. It's so much fun to open the jugs in the spring to find plants ready to go in the garden!
I have quite a few seed packets left over from spring that I purchased in the spring. I failed to read the packages until I got home. Got caught up with the pretty flowers on the packages. Many are those you mentioned and I am not sure where they got put because they sat on the counter for a couple months and I think my husband put them away…now if he remembers where…that will be a bonus 😂
Hello. I wonder if chamomile would be successful in winter sowing?