Easy Annuals in the Garden

Annual flowers are just that - one season flowers.  That can change, of course, in warm climates where the seeds that drop from mature flowers live through the winter and take root when the next growing season arrives. 

When you visit a plant nursery in the spring, most of the large flats of transplants are annuals.  They are easy to grow and, unlike perennials, they will continue to bloom throughout the growing season.  This makes these flowers excellent for landscape and container planting. 

Marigold are perhaps the most commonly known of the annual flower species.  Easily grown marigolds are a wonderful way to introduce gardening to children.  It is very hard to kill these plants so growing success is almost assured.  Pansies are another commonly seen annual.  They bloom through most of the spring and summer in northern areas, while in southern states they will thrive throughout the winter and die back during the hot, sun-filled summer months.  The small violas are my personal favorite - they look like miniature pansies.

Experienced gardeners use annual plantings to enhance perennial flower beds.  Tucked in between the hostas, the day lilies and over planted where tulips and other spring bulbs have already bloomed, these colorful plants fill in the flower beds until killed by heavy frost.  They continue to grow and bloom through the summer and by fall are often lovely specimen plants.

Care of these one-season plantings is very simple.  Regular watering (many varieties will quickly wilt and die in dry soil) and a high phosphorus plant food - often called "bloom" fertilizer - will provide drifts of blooms week after week.   Annuals also provide excellent cut flowers in your home.  With flower such as snapdragons, the more you cut the more they bloom.  The technique known as "dead heading" is pinching off spent flowers.  This keeps the plants from producing seeds and thus keeps them blooming.  Using them as cut flowers has the same effect on annuals.

Easy to grow, inexpensive to buy as transplants and downright cheap to start from seed - no garden is complete without a good variety of annual flowers.