I've been thinking to try and find some seeds for Balloon flowers in the catalogs I have but nothing so far so will start an internet search but wondered just how easy to start these indoors and then transplant out in late spring? Has anyone
grown them from seed indoors and then planted out in spring?

I haven't grown them before but thought the blues would add a touch of bling to the garden.

I tried to wintersow them for 4 or 5 years in a row and never had one sprout. I know lots of wintersowers who swear they're the easiest seeds to grow, but not for me. I think they just don't like me.

I've never tried them in the house.

Karn

I don't have much luck with winter sowing so usually start all my seeds indoors and then transplant out in spring.

I direct-sowed them here last year and they did fine. Now I'll find out if they come back this year. :greengrin

Tee: Where did you buy your seeds from?

Julia, I think I bought my seeds at one of the local farm supply stores here ... most likely Rural King. That probably doesn't help you very much since I can't remember the company name that was on the seed packs. Let me see if I still have an empty seed package. Sometimes I keep them.

Swallowtail seeds has a lot of varieties of Balloon flowers, if that helps, and they have a good reputation.

Good to know, woofie.

Julia, I'm thinking Summer Hill Seeds.

Tee, I bought a bunch of Summer Hill seeds on a co-op once, and I was not very pleased. The prices seemed a bit high for the number of seeds in a packet, and I did NOT have good germination rates from them. I mentioned it to them, too, and got no response. I hate to bad mouth a company for one negative experience, but I was not too pleased, and as I recall a number of other participants had similar complaints.

Well, that's good know. My balloon flowers were okay, but that might not have been the company.

I haven't totally written off the company, because they do have some hard-to-find varieties, but they're a last resort for me now.

True. Sometimes companies seem to go downhill for awhile and then they turn around. Hope that's the case.

Oh, and speaking of GOOD vendors, I've been really happy with Diane's Seeds, and she does have some balloon flowers, too.

Thanks for the names of companies. It is always good to get recommendations for online vendors.

And speaking of vendors, I wonder if Dave is going to set us up with a place to rate garden vendors?

I surely hope he does, and I hope we can upload pictures into it. Not being able to see pictures makes me suspect some times, and I get suspect easily, LOL. I think if someone had seen some of the pictures I took of plants they would never even consider buying from a certain company.

But sometimes I see poor ratings on a good company, and wonder if perhaps the rater is just not a novice gardener, and maybe the product was fine.

You know, that is an interesting thought. Maybe when we do get a vendor list, would it make sense to allow other members to give a "thumbs up" or maybe just an "agree/disagree" rating to the posted opinion?

And people often tend to rate something when they are disgruntled, have a bad experience, and want to complain. When all is well folks tend to go on their merry way without a second thought or so much as a "thank you" quite often. Human nature.

Oh, isn't that true! I just had the joy of selecting a new dishwasher, and reading all the reviews online....for every positive review of any product, there were at least two or three unhappy reviews.