On Wed, 05 Mar 2003 16:32:24 GMT, "Natty_Dread"
wrote:

Hey all -- I'm a relatively novice gardener with a stupid question. To date
I've only worked with established, pre-potted plants, but the other day I
bought seed packets for a bunch of perennial flowers I'd to try growing in
my garden and yard borders. Each packet has a number of seeds in it, and my
dumb question is, will each one of those seeds yield one flowering plant, or
does one plant grow from several seeds sown together?

Ideally, one seed produces one plant. However, for various reasons,
some seeds fail to germinate. Some seedlings die, even with the best
of care, as they continue to do from time to time when they're fully
grown. Surely you've bought a group of "pre-potted" plants and had 3
out of 4 grow beautifully and the other just decline and die. So you
plant more seeds than you expect to need plants. And they'll all
flourish, and you'll have too many. No guarantees either way.

I'm in Northern VA,
zone 7A; examples of the seeds I bought include oriental poppies, Black-eyed
Susans, carnations, coreopsis and a couple of others. How easy (or hard) is
it to grown flowering plants from seeds?

Check the directions on the packet. You can also search the web for
"'plant name' germination" and "'plant name' cultivation" for
particulars. There's a wealth of information Out There. Some plants
are "easier" than others -- that is, tolerant of less-than-ideal
conditions. Give it a shot.