Bringing the Color
When considering ways to personalize your landscape, there are some classic choices like utilizing garden art, trellises, structures, and boulder work. But what about a way to bring a personal touch that you can easily change out every season?
Bring on the annuals!
Annuals are often utilized in container plantings, by why keep them confined to small space when their impact can be just as impressive across the landscape? There are plenty of benefits to planting annuals in your garden spaces, read on for more!
What's an annual?
An annual is any plant that completes its life cycle in one growing season. Annuals are often not hardy to our growing zone (4b, if you're in the Twin Cities!) so they will not survive year to year through our winters. This can mean that plants that are perennials (live year to year, surviving the winter temperatures in their zone) in other zones should be treated as annuals or even houseplants here in our northern zone. Because they grow and flower quickly, annuals are a great choice for adding a pop of color to your garden, even in hard-to-manage spots!
By weaving annuals through the landscape you can bring all new color and texture to your garden each year, or even each season if you want to get really creative!
By weaving annuals through the landscape you can bring all new color and texture to your garden each year, or even each season if you want to get really creative!
Electrify your landscape
Think of annuals as a fun accessory to set off the outfit of your garden, bringing a punch of color and flair to a classic setting. A major difference between annuals and perennials is that annuals tend to flower more profusely and for a longer period of time than most perennials. While perennials here in the north need to spend a significant amount of energy on building strong root systems to help them survive the winter, annuals can put all that energy into gorgeous flowers and lush foliage.
Tropical Touches
There are plenty of design elements to consider when selecting plants for your garden, both perennials and annuals. One of the primary design elements is color color color! By changing up the color palette of your garden from year to year or season to season, you can create a whole new feeling!
In this case, the bright pink and orange zinnias bring a tropical feel when paired with the perennial alliums that come back every year.
What if next season there were bright white accents with darker foliage? By mixing and matching your annual selections each year, you can completely change the style of your garden!
Light Up the Shade
Do you think shade gardens are ho-hum boring? No longer! Annuals bring color, texture, height, and drama to the shade garden in a myriad of colors, shapes, and sizes! Coleus are a popular choice for their seemingly limitless variety of color schemes, and their rapid growth makes them a great choice for filling in spaces in the landscape. When choosing annuals for your garden, it's important to consider the location where you'll be planting them. Different annuals have different light and moisture requirements, so it's important to choose ones that will be well-suited to the conditions in your garden.
Here, begonias and impatiens bring bright red and pink accents to light up the variegated greens of this shady spot.
Bring a touch of whimsy to footpaths by lining them with colorful annuals to create a lovely border that guides the eye as well as the feet.
Water your annuals well after planting, and continue to water them regularly throughout the growing season. This will help them establish strong root systems and keep them healthy and vibrant.
In addition to regular watering, annuals also benefit from regular fertilization. This will help them grow and flower to their full potential. You can use a slow-release granular fertilizer or a liquid fertilizer applied according to the instructions on the package.
By weaving annuals through the landscape you can bring all new color and texture to your garden each year, or even each season if you want to get really creative!