Why Every Garden Needs Annuals

Most of our customers love flowers…the more the better. Flowering shrubs and trees are great for dependable, lower-maintenance color. Perennials provide an ever changing kaleidoscope of flowers that open at different points in the season. But even with a good selection of all of these plants, a garden needs annuals.

Unlike perennials and shrubs, most annuals bloom all summer. Many are in flower when they’re planted, and will continue to blossom until hard frost in October or beyond. Annuals provide that bridge color that can unite and carry a perennial garden through the entire season. They spill out of window boxes and containers, provide a flowering carpet for the shrubs, and can even make your vegetable garden the best dressed bed on the block.

Here’s a tip for planting annuals: Mix equal parts of Osmocote and Plant-tone fertilizers in a bucket. Before planting a container, combine a small handful of this mix into the potting soil. Before planting annuals in the ground, scatter this mix lightly over the surface of the entire area you’re planting. When you place the annuals in the ground, some of this mix will get turned into the soil and the rest of it will stay on the surface. Given this treatment, you won’t have to fertilize again all summer long.

Here are some annuals that are especially good for combining with shrubs and perennials:

This CityLine Paris Hydrangea is perfectly set off by the lime green sweet potato vine and the Pretty Much Picasso Supertunia from Proven Winners.

This photo was taken in late September and you can see how colorful the garden still is. This perennial bed had flowering poppies and peonies early in the season but it is the Sunpatiens (pink), yellow Bidens Goldilocks Rocks, white Frosty Knight Lobularia, and blue annual Salvia that have provided the color all summer. On the right of the photo you see annual ornamental kale. These have been planted where the peonies once stood. In early September the peonies are cut down, and the annual kale will be attractive here past New Years.

The annuals in this perennial garden are: Blue Horizon Ageratum (tall blue), Sedona Coleus, and the deep apricot Profusion Zinnias. All will be colorful into October.

The large white puddles of flowers are Snow Princess Lobularia, and annual that frequently lasts through Thanksgiving. This year I planted them with Bidens Campfire Fireburst and Golden Delicious Pineapple Sage. The purple in the background is a Volcano Phlox perennial.