Lychnis -- Molten Lava Starting perennials from seed!

This is a lychnis (common name maltese cross) called "molten lava" that I grew from seed. It was a highly successful seed experiment. As you can see from the picture, the plant is an eye-popper. The foliage starts out dark purple in the spring and greens up as the season progresses. It blooms for a long time, and it re-seeds itself -- I have doubled the number of plants by gently digging up and transplanting the volunteers the next spring. It grows only about 8" tall, so it's definitely for the front of a border. The seeds were easy to deal with, germinated well, and transplanted beautifully. I highly recommend this plant to any beginner who is thinking of trying perennials from seed. I started the seeds indoors under florescent lights on a heat mat, probably in early April.
Other easy-to-start seeds include many kinds of dianthus, fescue, aquilegia (columbine), verbascum, echinacea, gypsophila (baby's breath) and coreopsis (not the thread-leaf kind, but the types with the larger flowers). I have had good luck with all of these. I get a seed catalog from Morgan and Thompson that includes the difficulty of starting from seed for each plant, and I have found it to be fairly accurate.
Some of my seed-starting experiments have not gone as well. English daisy did very well for one season then didn't survive the winter. Delphinium -- same thing. I started Asclepias (butterfly weed) easily, but it attracted aphids like I couldn't believe. It was covered with them! Big "ick" factor. I ended up pulling it up and getting rid of it before they spread to the nearby plants. I have never been able to get poppies to germinate in the first place, but if I buy mature potted plants they do very well in my garden.
I think that starting perennials from seed is a great way to save some money if you're patient and willing to deal with some failures along the way. Every once in a while you end up with an absolute charmer like this molten lava lychnis which I've never seen in a nursery. I hope this post will inspire someone to give it a try. Besides, it gives those of us with short growing seasons something to do in the early spring!