Annuals: Garden Adornment

What is your summer garden without annuals? Like a princess without her tiara and jewels, it is just not dressed for the part.

Zinnias, bright and easy

The non-stop blooms of annual flowers punctuate the border and rim the walk, they dangle from the porch pots and collar the shrubs. Cheerfully and gracefully they ornament plantings in a way perennials would be hard-put to duplicate.
So, what shall we choose? Look over the plant lists and then shop your garden stores and seed catalogs ( make plans to collect and save seeds for many annuals that are listed as 'hybrids').

Many people start their own flats, which is very worthwhile in more ways than one. I, myself, never bother growing my own petunias, ageratums, lobelias, or marigolds (tagetes) that way. The flats available from the stores more than meet my needs, and I always grow my marigolds from seed " in situ " with better results. If you need large amounts of other types, or unusual varieties, then starting your own from seed is worth the experimentation.

If you are a newbie at this- the one important thing to pay attention to is: hardening off. That is the term for gradually introducing your little hothouse plants to the harsher elements of the real outdoors...gradually is the key word.
One of the plantings I'm repeating this year is a success of the past: two raised beds planted with small bulbs followed by tiny delicate annual flowers.

Timing

My ground is most unforgiving when worked wet, so it seems inevitable, with all the scrambling around in the spring planting, that I don't get to plant all the seeds I wanted. Even so, certain annuals are still worth effort well into June. Zinnias, marigolds, quick starters like candytuft and nigella, portulaca, even half-wilted petunias will revive (if you lop their heads off and give their roots soft earth and moisture). Many of the mixed annual packets have quick starting plants that can be sown at a late date. I would say the last week of June is the cut-off point, though.

Here's my list of worthies mostly grouped by size:

A descriptive list of flower choices.