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Seeds & planning

Sow in January. Plant out in May. Harvest on schedule.

Read a packet in once — or photograph it — and the whole seed year runs on rails: what to chill, what to start under lights, what to sow straight into the bed, and exactly when. Counted back from your frost date, not a region's.

The sowing calendar as a three-month timeline, April to June: each seed a row — Cardinal Flower and Echinacea finishing their pale-blue cold stratification before green sowing bars; tomato, basil, milkweed, bluestem, kale, and zinnia with green indoor-start bars in early April; cilantro and zinnia with tan direct-sow bars; hatched projected harvests across May and June — with today marked in early April and a dashed line at the last frost around May 5
The sowing calendar

Count backward from your frost date.

Each packet's timing — start indoors six weeks before, sow direct two weeks after — plus your last-frost date becomes one timeline. Move the frost date and every bar moves with it.

  • Cold stratify — weeks in the fridge before sowing
  • Start indoors — under lights, counted back from the last frost
  • Direct sow — straight into the bed, once it's safe
  • Harvest (projected) — sow date plus the packet's days to maturity
  • Last frost — the one date everything is counted from
  • Today — so you can see what's due this week

Timeline or list: the same windows as a dated to-do — In the fridge, Chill now, Sow now, Coming up — each row one tap from doing the thing.

Compare

Which packet earned a reorder.

Pick up to three packets and read them column by column: how each is sown and when, germination and seedling survival with the bars to match, what you spent, and what a seedling actually cost. When the catalogs arrive in January, you'll know.

  • Sown, up, survivedGermination rate and seedling survival per packet, for this season or all years.
  • Cost per seedlingPrice of the packet ÷ what came up — the number that settles the reorder.
  • Read off the packetDepth, spacing, days to maturity, and timing, photographed in on Premium or typed once.
The Compare tab: Tomato Brandywine, Tomato Sun Gold, and Zinnia Benary's Giant Wine side by side — general details (started indoors 7, 6, and 5 weeks before frost, days to maturity 85, 57, 75), the sowing calendar windows, this season's sowings with germination rates of 90%, 100%, and 80% and seedling survival, and inventory and cost — $4.50, $5.95, $6.20 spent, 20¢, 60¢, and 12¢ per seedling
One plant, start to finish

A $2.99 packet in January. 61 flowers, five summers later.

Start a plant from seed and its record starts with the packet: the weeks in the fridge, the sowing, how many came up, the day it went in the ground. Then every summer after, in your own photos and notes. This is one coneflower from the demo garden behind this page's screenshots, start to finish, exactly as its record holds it.

Flowers, counted each summer
  1. leaf only, no flowers in2022,9 in tall. Jump to 2022.
  2. 7 flowers in2023,24 in tall. Jump to 2023.
  3. 26 flowers in2024,30 in tall. Jump to 2024.
  4. 44 flowers in2025,35 in tall. Jump to 2025.
  5. 61 flowers in2026,38 in tall. Jump to 2026.
From the plant's own Growth tracking: one measurement a summer, 9 in to 38 in.
  1. Year one
    2022

    A packet, a tray, and a spot by the front walk.

    Most of a seed-grown plant's first year happens before it's a plant. The packet, the chill, the tray, and the count of what came up are on its record before it ever reaches the bed.

    Sown
    24
    Came up
    19
    Planted out
    9
    Height
    9 in
    A cream paper seed packet printed Coneflower, Magnus, Echinacea purpurea, on a wooden kitchen table beside a mug of coffee, a pencil, and a notebook of garden plans, snow outside the window
    Seeds bought

    Added Coneflower · Magnus seeds to the library

    From Botanical Interests · $2.99 · 50 seeds

    Kept in Seed library

    A small zip-top bag of damp sand and pale coneflower seeds, labelled with masking tape, on a refrigerator door shelf
    Cold stratify

    Coneflower seeds into the fridge

    Damp sand, a sandwich bag, the door shelf. Thirty days of pretend winter before they'll agree to sprout.

    Kept in Sowing calendar

    A freshly filled black seed tray on a wire basement shelf under an LED shop light, a blank plant label in one cell
    Sown

    Sowed Coneflower · Magnus

    Started indoors · 24 seeds · 24-cell tray · Basement shelf, under lights

    Twenty-four seeds pressed onto the surface and barely covered — they want light. Dome on, lights two inches above.

    Kept in Sowings

    Tiny coneflower seedlings, each a pair of oval seed leaves on a thin stem, coming up in a seed tray under lights
    Germinated

    Coneflower · Magnus germinated — 19 up

    19 up of 24 (79%)

    First green loops on day ten. Nineteen of twenty-four by day fourteen.

    Kept in Sowings

    Twelve young coneflower seedlings in three-inch black pots on a potting bench by a window, loose soil and a trowel beside them
    Potted up

    Potted up Coneflower · Magnus

    The best twelve into three-inch pots, true leaves on every one. The other seven went to the compost and it still felt like a crime.

    Kept in Sowings

    A tray of small potted coneflower seedlings set out on the edge of a wooden front porch beside a green watering can
    Hardening off

    Hardening off Coneflower · Magnus

    Out on the porch, an hour longer every day. Lost three to a hot afternoon I forgot about.

    Kept in Sowings

    Three tiny coneflower seedlings just planted in a triangle in the mulch of a front foundation bed, a white plant label and a trowel beside them, the porch behind
    Planted out

    Planted out Coneflower · Magnus in Front Yard › Foundation Bed

    9 made it of 19

    Three at the curve of the front walk, a foot apart. The other six went to the neighbors on both sides.

    Kept in Plant page

    The same spot in late August: three low rosettes of rough green coneflower leaves, no flowers, mulch between them
    Measured

    Measured Coneflower — Magnus

    Height 9 in

    All leaf, no flower stems. The packet said second summer, and the packet was right.

    Kept in Growth tracking

  2. Year two
    2023

    The first flower.

    It came back from its first winter, and sixteen months after sowing it opened one flower. That date started its bloom history, and every summer since is measured against it.

    Height
    24 in
    Stems
    5
    Flowers
    7
    Journal

    The coneflowers came back

    Three tufts of new leaves exactly where the rosettes were. Until this morning I wasn't sure a seedling could take a winter.

    Kept in Journal

    A single rosy-purple coneflower freshly open on a young plant, a few tight green buds behind it, the porch railing out of focus
    First bloom

    First coneflower

    One flower, open this morning. Sixteen months after sowing. Stood on the walk with my coffee and just looked at it.

    Kept in Bloom history

  3. Year three
    2024

    Sleep, creep, leap.

    The old rule for perennials held, and the July measurement put numbers on it. In October the seed heads stayed up and the finches came for them.

    Height
    30 in
    Stems
    14
    Flowers
    26
    The same spot two summers on: a young coneflower clump about two and a half feet tall with a couple of dozen rosy-purple flowers and a yellow swallowtail butterfly feeding on one
    Bloom

    Third summer: sleep, creep, leap

    Twenty-six flowers and a tiger swallowtail that has been on them since breakfast. This is the year it stopped looking like something I planted and started looking like it lives here.

    Kept in Journal

    Two goldfinches in olive autumn plumage perched on dark dried coneflower seed heads, the porch railing soft behind them
    Wildlife

    Goldfinches on the seed heads

    Left every stem standing this fall. Two goldfinches worked the cones all afternoon. Watched from the front window.

    Kept in Journal

  4. Year four
    2025

    The notes start earning their keep.

    A storm, a beetle problem, and a note to self that only matters twelve months later. This is the year the record stops being a diary and starts being useful.

    Height
    35 in
    Stems
    22
    Flowers
    44
    Pruning

    Cut back the coneflowers

    Old stems down to the new growth. Found four self-sown seedlings in the mulch and moved them to the side yard.

    Kept in Care

    Pest

    Japanese beetles on the coneflowers

    First ones today, chewing the petals. Into a bucket of soapy water every morning for two weeks. Note for next year: start looking July 1.

    Kept in Journal

    The same spot a year later: a bigger coneflower clump after a storm, its outer stems held by two bamboo canes and green twine, a few petals chewed
    Bloom

    Forty-four flowers, two stakes

    The storm on the 12th laid the outer stems flat. Two canes and a loop of twine and it stood back up. Forty-four flowers anyway.

    Kept in Journal

    A paper bag of dry spiky coneflower seed heads on a garage workbench beside a saucer of loose seed, an envelope, and a pair of snips
    Seed saved

    Saved seed from the coneflowers

    A dozen cones into a paper bag in the garage, a saucer of seed by evening. Next year's packet is free, and it's ours.

    Kept in Journal

  5. Year five
    2026

    Full grown.

    Last July's note said to start looking for beetles on the 1st, so the bucket was ready. And the plant that began as one line in a seed order is waist-high by the front walk.

    Height
    38 in
    Stems
    28
    Flowers
    61
    Pruning

    Cut back the coneflowers

    Fifth spring. Stems down, a handful of compost, ten minutes.

    Kept in Care

    Pest

    Beetle watch, right on schedule

    Last July's note said to start looking on the 1st, so the bucket was ready. First beetles on the 3rd.

    Kept in Journal

    Three tiny coneflower seedlings just planted in a triangle in the mulch of a front foundation bed, a white plant label and a trowel beside them, the porch behindMay 28, 2022 · planted out
    The same spot in its fifth summer: a full coneflower clump about three feet tall and wide, covered in rosy-purple flowers with orange cones, boxwood and catmint on either side, the porch behindJul 18, 2026 · 38 in, 61 flowers
    Bloom

    Fifth summer

    Sixty-one flowers, waist-high, bees on it from seven in the morning. It started as a packet that cost less than a coffee, and every step between is on this page.

    Same spot, four years apart. Both photographs are on the plant's record, and in the app Then & Now puts any two of them under one drag handle.

And all of it is one page.

Open the coneflower in Plants and scroll to its timeline: 25 entries, this July at the top, the seed packet at the bottom. Nobody sat down to write a history. The packet, the sowing, and the plant are linked, so the page reads from the first day.

The From seed card on the plant's page: Coneflower · Magnus, Botanical Interests; Started indoors · Mar 12, 2022, marked Transplanted
On the plant's page, From seed: the packet it came from and the tray it was sown in, each one tap away.
  • It starts before the plant doesBought, chilled, sown, germinated, potted up, hardened off. The sowing's stages come along the day you plant it out.
  • The numbers keep themselves24 sown, 19 up, 9 planted out. A measurement each summer becomes the growth chart: 9 in to 38 in.
  • Every summer lines up against the lastBloom history holds first, peak, and last flower for each year, starting Jul 8, 2023, and says whether this one ran early or late.
  • Your photographs, in order14 on this record, grouped by season so the same July sits beside itself across years.
The Timeline card on the coneflower's page, 25 events, 'Includes the sowing's history — from the packet to the day it went in the ground': from Fifth summer, Jul 18, 2026, down through measurements, beetle notes, saved seed, goldfinches, and the first coneflower on Jul 8, 2023, to 2022 — planted out May 28, Transplanted 9 made it of 19, hardening off, potted up, germinated 19 up, sown Mar 12, seeds into the fridge Feb 5, and the packet added to the library on Jan 15, 2022

Plants · Coneflower — Magnus, in the ground 4 years 3 months. An unretouched capture of its timeline, from July 2026 back to the packet in January 2022.

Your next packet could be the first line of a page like this.

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