FEBRUARY 2026 NEWSLETTER

Last call for winter sowing!

February is one of my favorite months. The days are getting longer and they tend to be bright and sunny. Did you know we average 21 sunny days in February? Not bad for a month that only has 28 days. Combine that with fresh white snow and you have a winter wonderland.

Native seeds also love February. They love to spend it covered with a layer of fresh snow. If you haven’t winter sown your seeds yet this is your last call. Seeds sown in March will probably not have a long enough period of cold to break dormancy. In March and April you still have the option to put your seeds in the fridge, and there are lots of options for species that will germinate without stratification or reduced germination with light. I’ll expand more on that topic later in the season.

If you are new to winter sowing there are lots of resources out there. One of my favorites is this three part series from the Royal Botanical Gardens in Hamilton.

I am winter sowing in two different ways this year. The first involves putting pots inside clear ventilated boxes. This is the way that I have used for the past two years. A handy tip I came across was to put snow inside the boxes as well. The snow insulates the seeds and when it melts in the spring it will keep the pots watered for the first little while.

*This year’s winter sown seeds. I put these boxes outside at the beginning of December.*
*They are now buried under several feet of snow.*

The new way I’m trying this year is to sow the seeds directly in flats and put them in my unheated greenhouse. I have already noticed the critters trying to dig up the native sunflower species so I covered some of the flats with a hardware cloth screen. With this method I was hoping to avoid some of the transplanting and thinning that needs to happen in the spring. Unfortunately I discovered just how difficult it was to put just one or two tiny seeds in each cell, so my future self will still need to thin and transplant. I also covered these flats with a layer of snow. This year we have plenty of snow to bury all of our seeds!

*Flats of winter sown seeds in the unheated greenhouse.*
*It was pretty funny to be shoveling snow on top of things instead of off of things.*

More crazy experiments

If you have been reading this newsletter for a little while you will know that I am always working on some sort of crazy experiment with seeds. Last month I stumbled upon some information that suggested using an aquarium bubbler to germinate seeds. How could I resist?

First I checked to make sure it was legit and not someone just making stuff up. It was! Here is the article if you are interested.

I tossed all of the sedge seeds into the bubbler set up to see what would happen. Nine days later some of them started to germinate! I still need to run a control group (put them in water without the bubbler) to see if it is the bubbling or just soaking in water that is causing them to germinate. This set up might not be something the average home gardener will want to try, but I will let you know how it turns out.

*The sedge seeds are in little organza bags in the mason jars with air stones.*

Enjoy all of the sunshine this February,

Andrea