No show parsnips.

Not scorzonera, but I have grown salsify, which is gorgeous & its cousin, but much thinner than parsnips. Slugs like the new leaves too.

I have no parsnips either. 

None here either after three attempts 

Just one sown in a pot came through and it looks very lonely!  It was fresh seed this year, too 

I left some parsnips in to bolt, which produced seed last year. I saved some, and a lot fell on the ground. They are coming up all over the place and look like producing good roots.

I have had mixed success with parsnips this year, in a bed on allotment filled with brand new soil, they went off brilliant, in my tired out back garden bed the parsnips have required 2 sowings to get a result. Carrots have also been inconsistent in back garden bed, best results gained by sowing into a 1" deep layer of potting compost on top of the soil. In the new allotment bed they have done great. Certainly a lesson learnt I'm soil nutrition levels!

Not sure why that would happen HG22.  However, I think a lot of time the problem with poor germination of parsnips is that they are sown too early.  Best to wait until the ground has started to warm up.  This might explain why people second attempts have worked where the first attempt failed rather than a change in variety. 

This year I sowed on the 19th April and had very good germination.  In fact I have never had poor germination rates with parsnips since I stopped trying to get them started off in February like the packs say you can!

Also seedlings need to be kept moist until the roots are established and can get water from deeper down, the top few inched can dry out very easily and this is bad news for tiny seedlings.

I guess the third thing is to create a nice seed bed for them to get started in.  As Thrutchingtom mentions a drill filled with multipurpose compost works very well but does have a tendency to dry out quickly.

Mine were fresh seed this year and even with ideal conditions, eg, soft damp paper towel in an unheated but warm green house, not one showed, temprimental or what, Dave

I always grow mine in paper pots. From the pots I put out about two months ago only about six plants survived (too cold!). I started again and  plugged the spaces with new pots. This time only about two pots failed. The plants are still quite small but growing.
Anton