Free plants?? Well almost. Winter sowing is one of the cheapest and most hassle-free ways to grow new plants.

You get some seeds, put them in a little clear container with some dirt and stick them outside. Yes, outside now, in the winter. Then you forget about them until the spring when they start coming up.

Here are the details:

Black-eyed Susans are good perennial plants for the garden.

Seed selection
Winter sowing works best with hardy native plants. In the Ann Arbor area, the plants I've had the best luck with are Black-Eyed Susan (Rudbeckia hirta), Purple Coneflower (Echinacea purpura), Prairie Blazing Star (Liatris pycnostacha), Wild Lupine (Lupinus perennis), and grasses like Little Blue Stem (Schizadyrium scoparius).

Native plants are especially good for this because they already have evolved to withstand and grow in the local conditions. By winter sowing, you're just giving them a little helping hand (with the mini-greenhouses) and increasing the ratio of seeds that survive. The BackyardGarder.com Web site and a comprehensive plant encylopedia that may help you choose your plants.

Planting medium
This is easy. Dirt. Just plain old dirt. I like to use fresh compost or the cheapest dirt I can find at a store. If you use dirt from outside just be aware that you may get some weeds or other plants, so you'll want to know what your seedlings look like at early ages so you don't accidentally weed out all the good seedlings. Just take a peek at Google Images for pictures of the seedlings you may be unfamiliar with.

Vessel preparation
I like to use old, clear plastic 2-liter pop or juice bottles. I've tried milk jugs, but didn't get great results from them. With an Exacto knife poke about 4 or 5 small holes for air around the top, then about 2 holes on the very bottom so that water won't collect too much. Then cut the bottle nearly in half, leaving a little hinge. It should go without saying the pop bottle should be well-rinsed and cleaned before use.

Planting
Fill the bottle about a third of the way with your dirt. Place your seeds in the dirt (2 times as deep as the seed is long is a good rule of thumb). I find it easier to do 1 plant type per bottle rather than mixing them up. Give the dirt a small splash of water (just so it isn't completely dry), then tape up the bottle along the cut so it stays closed. I've had good luck with regular masking tape. Then write the name of the seed in permanent marker in a few locations on the bottle (the bottle cap seems to keep the marker the best).

Spring harvest
As it gets warmer out in the spring, you'll start to see little sprouts form. Around the first week of May, I start to poke more holes in the top of the bottles. Then after about a week or 2, I take off the bottle caps. Then at about mid- to late-May, after the threat of frost is gone I untape the bottles. The hardest part of winter sowing is determining when the seedlings are ready to plant.

I tend to get excited and plant too early, so I usually wait longer than I think they'd be ready. But usually it's before June when you plant them. I just take some scisors and cut the bottle open so I can easily scoop out the dirt as a whole unit. Then you carefully divide them and plant them. Remember to water them a lot as they grow.

The first year
Some plants, like Purple Coneflower, won't flower until they're 2 years old. So, don't get too worried if your yearlings don't get too big or flower. They've got a lot of work to do putting down roots that first year. You'll find that some plants work better than others, so have fun and experiment.

Joe is a fifth generation native resident of Ann Arbor who has lived within a mile of the Michigan Stadium for over 30 years. He works in IT at the University of Michigan and is a PhD student at Eastern Michigan University's College of Technology. Woodworking, native plant gardening, snowshoeing and running are a few of Joe's hobbies. Joe can be reached at joebauer@gmail.com.