how to germinate verbena bonnareis?

OK, I know I didn't spell it right:)It's the tall kind.
I have tried direct sowing in spring and starting under lights. Currently, I have a ziploc bag damp of soiless potting mixture with seeds in the fridge for a 2 week cold treatment.
Help! This my third year to try to germinate for these flowers and I REALLY want some this year! Any suggestions?
Thanks,
Lorie in Indiana

I've had success starting with bottom heat, and growing on quite warm until they need to be hardened off. Definitely not direct sown in my climate and no stratification. Seem to remember they may need light, so don't cover too deeply.
Treat them gently, but once established they're pretty tough.

You know they need the cold treatment and sounds like your doing that they also need dark are you covering the seeds. How I got them to germinate was sowed them in a egg carton in moist starter mix and put them in the freezer then moved them to a warmer area and they where up in no time when they started coming up I left the lid of the egg carton open until they where big enough to transplant. Hope that helps!

Breeze looks as if you'll need to split your seed in half and find out which of the two opposites works for you LOL

It's erratic anyway. I think the easiest way is to winter sow it outside. - I'd try the coke bottle greenhouses that I put on the propagation forum. Take your pre-chilled soil/seed mix and spread over the surface of the coke bottle pot that you've filled with more soil mix. Water and put the bottle top back on with a few slits cut in it for ventilation. Then place it outside until spring.

Verbena bonariensis is a big re-seeder and I've read that it needs darkness to germinate but I don't think that's true. Sometimes I think the fluctuating temps that mother nature provides helps with these tricky seeds that refuse to grow when you plant them ... but then will sprout all over the garden on their own like weeds. If you don't get any germination I may have a few stray seedlings later in the spring

mine reseed every year outside!

And mine :)

I still maintain that it's easy started inside with a little heat. It's S American
My book says it'll flower first year from an early sowing and mine certainly did. It doesn't like frost. the plants in sheltered positions in my garden keep going from year to year, but others die of the cold.