19 degrees this weekend

Terese: You never know, some of the others might bounce back, too, when the weather warms. They don't look too bad, at least they're still nice and green, not discolored. Give them some time to recover and you might be pleasantly surprised.

Karen

I went out today in that blustery cold weather and checked on my containers. They are all still hanging on with strong green sprouts. I believe I spied one more tomato sprout. Hardy little devils they are!

tcs: Your sprouts may be laying down to conserve their energy, but they are still green and I bet they will perk back up when the temps start warming up. Keep the faith!

My Morning Glories & Baby Breath haven't sprouted yet. You may have to re-sow those seeds, but they will still have plenty of time to grow. I think their rapid germination & growth will pleasantly surprise you. When our temperatures start to soar, we'll wish for cooler weather again.

Currently the temperature in the Baltimore area is 42 degrees, but with the wind chill it feels like 35. According to our local weather station, freeze warnings are still in effect through tonight and into tomorrow morning.

Monday: high 49 - low 35
Tuesday: high 51 - low 35
Wednesday: high 55 - low 41 (showers-YEAH!)
Thursday: high 59 - low 40 (lingering showers - I'll take that)
Friday: high 59 - low 40

We've had a dry Spring and we need every bit of rain we can get. I know that some of you are getting a freak April snow storm, but at least when all that snow melts it will water your gardens, your ws containers, and replenish your resevoirs. I'm afraid that my area could be headed for another hot dry Summer with mandated watering restrictions! This would be the 3rd or 4th year in a row. We had water restrictions starting in May last year, which then finally ended in mid-Sept. That's no fun and the plants in your garden, plus your lawn suffer greatly.

I did find another container with very healthy looking babys breath.... i must have posted that in a different thread... so i wont feel as horrible if these dont make it.

Shirley -- your temps will be about 10 give or take degrees warmer than me.
as long as the nights are above freezing... i can deal with it. we are expecting rain too mid-week.

Easter here was ten degrees colder than Christmas, and we had snow flurries to boot. Weird!

Late last winter I planted larkspur, perennial dianthus and columbine in an outside windy shed in February. When they got ready, they sprouted. Subsequent freezes did not bother them. I plant poppies on top the snow in March, when the snow melts they go down into the cracks and crevices and grow beautifully just need to be thinned out in some place.

The lowest it got down to here during that cold spell was 29*F, according to http://www.nws.noaa.gov/ - maybe next year I'll be using one of those mini-max outdoor thermometers that would be more accurate for my own garden.

I did not cover anything with tops or tarp, and everything looks fine. There is one 1-qt yogurt container with Salvia jurisicii that sprouted on 3/24/07. One of the sprouts after the coldest night looked like its "stem" got broken - maybe Mother Nature's way of culling that batch? Otherwise, the rest look great and are forming their first set of true leaves.

These are the sturdiest, best looking seedlings I have ever grown from seed, so I will definitely WS again next winter. This experience has taught me a great deal that should make next year's adventure go more smoothly, but there's still a lot to learn...so many plants still to investigate

I'll be back to post my list of what was sown, what germinated and when. I'm still "wintersowing" - anyone else?

Shirley, thanks for reminding me about possible water restrictions come up. I may mix in a tsp of those water-hydrating crystals in the bottoms of holes into which I transplant plants - beneath their roots. I ordered some from https://www.jungseed.com/jungsitedefault.aspx . (FYI - They sent 2 dead chrysanthemums, but I haven't notified the company in a timely manner, so can't rightly enter a complaint in the Garden Watchdog. )

Shirley, do you know what kinds of MGs you wintersowed? Your Ipomoea purpurea wintersowed great last year. If you are successful with any other kind of MG, I'd love to know which one(s).

Blue: Glad to hear that your wintersown sprouts all did very well with the freeze that we had last week. Hopefully, they also endured the soaking rains yesterday too. I haven't gone out to check mine yet. Too busy with cleaning up our basement that flooded during the Nor'easter. I'll get you the names of the MG's I've wintersown for this year. They're listed on my Excel spreadsheet.

Shirley, you won't believe what happened last night - well, you'll believe that a neighbor's tree pounded our car (just a few dents - it runs fine), but - at the same time the storm was lashing our car about - the first seedling sprouted of Nierembergia 'Penny Black' sown on 4/11/07.

We were very lucky, and also lucky that all our neighbors are caring folks with a sense of humor. We did get hung up, though, on waiting for the police to show up whom the tree removers asked us to call - their removal efforts were hampered by a couple of cars left behind ours that no one knows who the owners are - been there a while.

I hope your basement is back to normal by now. I don't know about you, but it would be nice if DH and I could solve our basement water issues by taking advantage of the opportunity to make a cistern for summer gardening.

How's everyone else faring in this weather? Any snow up there, Claypa and se_eds? midwest gardeners? others?

anyone else getting sprouts during this mess?

We had about 2" of rain and winds around 25 mph with gusts to 50. This is the second day in the house for me. UGH. Has been 42 deg all day and windy. Rain/snow mix this AM didn't amt. to anything. When I see the coastal pictures, I consider myself lucky.

I have larkspur planted outside in a pan again this winter but the darm things just didn't sprout. Seeds may have been old. I am getting poppies coming up in the flower beds, sown in March.

I had a Achillea/ Yarrow mix seedling appear this morning, and noticed yesterday the jug of Papaver orientale 'Pizzicato' sprouted... not sure if I should have planted those Poppies next fall or not, but I didn't have them last fall.

We've had 4+ inches of rain so far, any more and certain roads will close, near the river. There was a dusting of snow this morning. The last two nights i covered the jugs with a lightweight plastic drop cloth, the rain held it down no problem, which was a good trick because the wind has been 15-25 mph steady with higher gusts for a couple days.
I did bring in the jugs of Tagetes (annuals) because they were croaking in the cold. A bunch more sprouted indoors, that's fun to see.