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Fast-growing,
fast-flowering annuals up the options for the home
gardener. While
annuals typically come and go within a year, they
create quite an impact in a short time span.
Annuals
are easy, inexpensive and come in an amazing range of
color, heights and widths, and several are fragrant.
We can use them for spot or mass color in beds, as
borders or in pots on the porch, patio or even placed
in flower beds for emphasis.
Annuals
are a handy tool for instant color in the garden.
They allow us to play with our favorite colors
outdoors. These colors, in turn, set a mood. Whether a
cool scene with blues, a warm
single-color garden of yellow,
or warmer theme with reds and oranges.
Cool colors are calming and recede in the
distance helping a small garden appear larger. Hot
colors stand out at a distance and make a large garden
appear smaller. Keep in mind while arranging annual
color that complementary colors ( those across from
each other on the color wheel)
emphasize each other’s brightness and
intensity. Yellow is opposite purple; orange is across
from blue; red complements green.
Cool-season
annuals can be used in the garden fall, winter and
spring.
Warm-season
types are useful late-spring into fall.
Cool-season annuals can be used to fill bare
spots around dormant shrubs or perennials or
complement late-winter
or early spring bulbs. Snapdragons, allysum, English
daisies, forget-me-nots, nasturtiums, painted tongue,
poppies, petunias, pansies and violas, primroses,
nemesia, calendulas and stock
are among the cool-season bloomers to consider
for the fall-through-spring landscape. These
old-fashioned annuals are ideal for any garden, but
are especially well-suited for the flower-filled
cottage garden.
When
the heat sets in, torenias, a must in the summer shade
garden; angelonia, gomphrena and zinnias, perfect for
hot, sunny days, can take over. The succulent,
low-growing moss rose tolerates our long summer.
Sunflowers bring height to the warm-season
garden. In
recent years, coleus varieties have multiplied, and
now these colorful foliage plants are available for
sun or shade. Few plants give as much with so few
demands. Caladiums,
too, planted around Easter, will provide leafy color
through the warm season.
The
keys to success with annuals: Plant in an organically
enriched, well-draining soil in an area that provides
proper sunlight or shade. Keep an eye on moisture,
especially until the plants are established. Look for
drought-tolerant annuals for summer gardens.
Annuals
benefit from monthly applications of a balanced
fertilizer. |
