Enjoying Annuals

One of my favorite tasks is selecting and planting annuals in my yard. They are a colorful addition to any landscape design and can add beauty when planted in the ground or placed in a pot on your deck, patio, or in a hanging basket.

By definition, an annual is a plant that grows to maturity, produces flowers or fruit, and dies all in a single growing season. Seeds or small plants are planted in the spring and by late autumn the plant has done its work and died.

Understanding their brief life cycle is important because of the relevance to properly spacing plants. With proper placement and care, most varieties of annuals will bloom all the way through the growing season. Some varieties will even continue to bloom after a light frost in the fall.

The beauty of flowering annuals can be best displayed by group plantings. Brilliant color can be achieved with as few as three plants or as many as 300, but your groupings will more than likely fall somewhere in between.

Most annuals thrive in full sun, but there are also many varieties that do well in the shade. Coleus, a plant noted for its brightly colored foliage more than its flowers, grows well in the shade. The wax begonia has historically been considered a shade-loving plant, although there are new varieties that do very well in the sun. Impatiens is another shade lover with numerous colors and varieties.

Also growing well in the shade is a small plant usually used as a border - the lobelia, which comes in white as well as shades of blue and magenta. Other common shade lovers include fuchsia, the tuberous begonia, caladium and browallia. There are many other shade plants; you should check with your local garden center for more specific types.

Most annuals will do well in your yard in a variety of locations. If you choose to keep them in a container on a patio or deck, remember to water and fertilize them much more frequently than would be necessary in an in-ground location.

When looking for the best annuals for your needs, in addition to considering shade vs. sun requirements, also watch for unique characteristics within each variety. For example, the common marigold can be found in a range of heights, from a border size that grows to between six and eight inches in height, through a type that can get to be two feet tall. Zinnias and snapdragons are other common annuals that come in a variety of heights. Before planting, you need to confirm that you are getting what you need for your particular location, and what you expect.

When planting annuals, prepare your soil as you would when planting anything else: add some good topsoil, a little peat and/or compost, and some balanced fertilizer. Mix it together, which will also help get a lot of air into the soil, down to at least 8 inches deep, so the roots can breathe, but be careful not to pulverize. Watch areas in you yard that tend to be a little drier than other areas and plan to compensate accordingly with extra watering, where needed.

Once you're ready to plant, pay close attention to recommended spacing suggestions. If you are planning to place the plants a little closer together, keep them pinched hard initially so they don't crush each other. Since annuals are generally planted in groups of like variety, it is a good idea to put a little extra space between each of the different varieties if you have several types in a single bed.

If you are planting flats of plants - as opposed to seeds - make sure you pinch the tops off immediately before or during planting. You can cut the tops with shears, if you prefer. Yes, even cut the current blooms, if necessary. By doing so, you take the pressure off the root system that is struggling to establish itself in a new location. You also encourage the plant to start new side stems that will fill in the plants and eventually bloom. That way, instead of a single-stemmed plant, you'll have a much fuller plant with more blooms in the long run.

As blooms start to fade, you should also pinch these dying flowers back, being sure to remove the fruit or seed head. Once the flower goes to seed, it seems to send a "signal" to the plant that the season is over and the plant will die much sooner. By continually deadheading the flowers, you can extend the season.

I even go so far as to cut back all my flowers right after the Fourth of July. They look bare for up to two weeks, but then I have a lovely second blooming period from late July through late frost.

Now that the threat of frost has passed, get to your local garden center and select annuals for your yard. With a little care, you can enjoy blooms virtually all summer. And chances are you'll enjoy them so much that planting annuals will become an "annual" event.