Lesson 5: Annuals, Perennials and Biennials
The terms annual, biennial and perennial are specific to certain classes of plants. This lesson will demystify these daunting names and help you learn to choose just the right blooms for your garden.
What is An Annual?
Annuals are a wonderful class of plants. They provide the instant color our garden-starved hearts long for after a cold, dreary winter. These are plants that grow, bloom and die in one season. However, they do often re-seed themselves for the following year. Deadheading them helps prolong their blooming, and prevents them from going to seed too soon.
Annuals can be sown indoors, in late winter, or purchased in the familiar six packs found in most garden centers. They are wonderful choices for hanging baskets and planters, used as fill-ins for new gardens, or simply mass planted for walls of color. These hard working blooms are both economical and easy to care for.
There are both Spring and Fall annuals. Pansies, stock, violas, sweetpeas and snapdragons can be sown in the late Fall or early Spring. Summer annuals such as impatiens, coleus or petunias need to be planted after the last frost date.
Look for healthy nursery starts with vigorous green growth and little to no flowering. Unless you are a skilled gardener, stay away from plants with yellowing or droopy leaves. If the soil in the sixpack is hard and dry, go somewhere else. Annuals this young are rather fragile, and being choked like that means little chance of survival. Out of the 50 or so six packs I rescue each year, maybe half survive to be anything worthwhile.
Plant them in loose, well amended soil. Slip them one by one out of their little slot, gently break the bottom of the plant in half, and immediately place in the earth. Pat the earth gently, and start the next one. I like to use a gentle spray watering on new annuals, so their fragile stems don’t break.
I feed mine weekly with fish emulsion, and foliar spray them with MiracleGro. This keeps them healthy and well fed. Use a gel type slug and snail killer to keep them away from your new babies. Snails love young annuals. So, do this right after planting and watering them.
Don’t feel badly if some of your annuals fail. It happens to the best of us. Since they are so economical, it is an easy matter to replace sick or straggling plants with healthier starts.
For mass plantings, pack them in very closely and soon you will see a living wall of color grow right before your eyes.
