Here
Today: Gone Tomorrow!
Don’t you
think it is time for a good word about annuals? Annuals are those
plants that complete their life cycle – growth, flowering,
reproduction, death- within one year. They have no time to waste so
they flower abundantly. Biennials grow their first year,
reproduce and die in the second. Technically, a perennial is a plant
that lives more than two years. However, since we remember daylilies
that survived their gardeners by decades, we tend to expect long
life from all perennials, a vain expectation.
Annuals, bless
their hearts, make it clear that they will give their all in just
one year. Some of them do return. You will find Johnny-jump-ups
popping up here and there years after the parent plant is gone and
both larkspur and cleome self-seed and if not inadvertently weeded
away, will bloom, but often in different colors. Even petunias will
occasionally self-sow but, as hybrids, their offspring are usually a
disappointment.
Gardeners often
sow annual seeds inside to rush the season but many varieties can be
sown outside where you want them to flower. They will be labeled
‘hardy annual’ on the seed packet and will not mind cold spring
nights. Nasturtiums, poppies, larkspur, sunflowers, and lavatera
(mallow) are some of the hardy annuals.
Those considered
‘half-hardy’ should not go into the ground until danger of frost is
over so they are often started as a kitchen counter project.
Marigolds, zinnias, petunias, cosmos, asters (not the fall sorts but
the callistephus) and impatiens are some of the half-hardy annuals.
One, new to me, is nolana. It belongs to the same solanaceae family
as the petunia, has a trailing habit with succulent foliage and
blue, purple, and white bells with a distinctive white and yellow
throat. Wouldn’t they be pretty in baskets or containers? As they
are drought tolerant and love hot sunny borders, nolana seeds might
be a happy find for here.
Don’t feel you are
any less a ‘real’ gardener if you skip the seed-starting and just
fill your car with flats of annuals neatly grown by someone else and
ready to plop into the ground. Work up the ground in advance and if
it is hard and unyielding, work compost into it.
Traditionally
annuals flourished in the gardens which are called cottage gardens
today, a kindly unpretentious phrase which is a cover for the
stuffed and vibrant and messy array of blooms most of us dearly
love. They are the antithesis of the neat grass and evergreens that
characterize very proper neighborhoods.
There are new
versions of old favorites this spring. ‘Double Click Rose Bonbon’
cosmos is a decided departure from the image ‘cosmos’ conjures. It
is a pink pom-pom 3-4 inch fully double wow. The seeds can be sown
directly into well-drained poor soil after danger of frost is
passed. Like all annuals, this must be dead-headed to keep it
flowering to frost.
Breeders are
developing all sorts of anomalies: for example, there is a begonia
for sun! This series of sun tolerant begonias is named “Big” and
comes in red with green foliage, rose with bronze and red with
bronze. This cultivar would work in a spot with both sun and shade
but where you wish to have a lot of one plant. This is another asset
of the less expensive annuals- lots of the same plant. To avoid a
scattered, piecemeal look, it is good to have more than a few of
each plant, but a budget buster with many choices.
Another fashion we
expected to see, given the passion for purple, is the use of
contrasting chartreuse/lime blooms. Even a sunflower, Helianthus
debilis ‘Key Lime Pie’ comes with a chartreuse disk, a neat contrast
to H. annuus ‘Claret’ a dark chocolate with a metallic sheen. These
hybrids do not tower but grow to an adaptable four to five feet. One
richly purple petunia is ‘Blue Velvet’ with large double flowers.
Combined in a container with a chartreuse coleus, it would stop
traffic! Annuals provide a rich palette for gardeners wishing to
experiment.