Can I plant seeds now for summer perennial flowers for next year?

Question

Can I just through a bunch of seeds in or is there a method for spacing and such?

Answer 1

If you have already planted seeds & they are sprouting, you'll have to make sure you protect the seedlings with mulch. Because freezing of tender seedlings is a major concern when planting seeds, many people advocate waiting until after a killing frost before they sow seeds in the fall. "The timing is roughly the same as when tulip bulbs are planted-late enough to be sure your seeds will not sprout before winter. The point is to wait until the soil is so chilled that seed cannot sprout, but stays dormant until warming soil and moisture trigger germination in spring."
http://www.americanmeadows.com/QuickGuideToWildflowers/WildflowerHowTo/WildflowerSeedPlantingInstructions.aspx#FallPlanting

Simply choose your site, prepare your ground, and sow your seed before the ground freezes. There's definitely less time-pressure on the gardener in fall than in spring. You can broadcast many perennial & wild flower seeds, pat them down, & allow frost heave to bury them. Make sure the ground has been freshly tilled & not hard-packed. You can also mix roughly ten parts of light sand or vermiculite to one pack of seed and simply sow it.

Nature plants wildflowers in the fall. Flowers in the wild bloom, then "go to seed" ... dropping their seeds to propagate their individual species. Black-eyed Susans bloom in mid-summer, and then drops a large number of seeds from each dying flower in late summer. If weather cooperates, these seeds may sprout before winter. If it is dry and hostile for the seeds, they will simply lay there through the winter and sprout in spring.

After Sowing. Once all your seed is evenly sown, do not rake or cover it with soil. (Some species require light to germinate.) Instead, simply compress the seed into the loose, bare soil. If your site is small, walking over the whole area, being careful to leave the area solid with footprints does just as well. Some people have been known to lay down an old sheet of plywood, and then jump on it to compress the seed into the soil. This is a very important step, since compressing the seed into soil creates all-important "seed to soil contact"-a major aid in successful seed germination.

Here's some more methods for fall planting of summer-blooming perennial flower seeds :
http://www.alchemy-works.com/fall_planting.html

Good luck! Hope this is helpful.

Answer 2

You could, but my fear would be that they'd sprout and not have enough time to get a good set of roots growing before a frost came a long and killed them. Then you'd have nothing. If you want to sow the seed this year, wait awhile until it's colder. Otherwise, plant em out next Spring after danger of frost. Basically it's a storage issue. Do you want to store the seeds in the ground over winter, or in your house?