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Just Pretend it's an Annual

© Carol Wallace

"People up here are learning to grow roses as annuals." That's what the tour guide at the Royal Botanical gardens in Hamilton, Ontario said.

The very idea shocked me - but all around me I heard people murmuring to each other, saying things like "About time they wised up." Or, "How intelligent of them!"

So I tried to see it their way.

In a way, I can. There are many things in my garden that are not hardy here but which grow and thrive in the South. I grow cannas and calla lilies, tuberoses, dahlias and caladium, colocasia, jasmine and brugmansias. But I dig most of them up every fall, bring them in, bury them in peat and store them in a cool spot to plant in late spring of the following year. The brugs, huge as they are, come into the house, pots and all, as does the jasmine. Only the caladium gets replaced, as I have never yet been successful in overwintering them. So I am not growing most of them as annuals.

But I rather suspect that the older and creakier I get the fewer of the above list will make it into the garden each spring - or out of it in fall when the weather is cool and the joints are stiff. Still, I'd hate to give them up - so growing them as annuals may be the only way to keep them.

After all, a single brug costs less than a flat of pansies and fills a much larger space. So why not grow it as an annual?? It doesn't sound as cost-effective - but if you have one, you can take cuttings. Just cut off a branch tip or two - the soft ends that have not yet assumed a woody exterior - and plunk them in a glass of water. They root very easily- and you'll have a never-ending succession of brugs for a single, one-time investment. This is true of dahlias and jasmine.

As for the others - they have the inestimable virtue of making a big splash in the garden. Every one has either a fabulous leaf or a wonderful, colorful and lasting flower - or both. Inch for inch they give you a lot more bang for your buck than a flat of impatiens.

If you're into simple gardening, it makes sense to grow those plants that make a single season show as annuals even if they may be perennial elsewhere. When your mind categorizes them as annuals you end up planting things that make a big splash in the garden for a single season - and when frost hits, you say goodbye without a qualm. It's when you think of them as "should-be" perennials that you run into problems- and digging, storing and (if you're lucky and they don't shrivel over the winter) replanting. Think of them as tender perennials perhaps - and then either cart them in for the winter - or consider their contribution finished when frost strikes.

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