subject: Plant Annuals for Season Long Color [print this page] Summer is a time for beautiful splashes of color. We see it in clothing, beach towels, produce, and in the beautiful flowers. You can bring that gorgeous color into your own yard by planting annuals.
Annuals are a flower that has a one season life span. Generally, they cannot survive outside when temperatures dip low enough to freeze. For that reason, you do not want to plant them until all danger of frost is past. However there are a few exceptions to this rule. Those exceptions are flowers that are called hardy annuals or biennials. These flowers, like pansies can take a light frost and still look beautiful. In fact, as biennials pansies are a great fall to spring flower. You can plant them in the fall for late fall color and then they will emerge again in the spring and provide early spring blossoms before they die.
There are a few other flowers that seem to come back and grow again. These flowers are not perennials or biennials they are simply annuals that dropped seed. Flowers that commonly do this petunias, larkspur and snapdragons. In fact, some people seem to have a group of snapdragons that spring up from the same spot every year without any planting. This is because the seeds dropped the fall before and then germinate in the spring. If you have an area of your yard that you would allow to go a little wild', you could plant larkspur or snapdragons. In the fall, don't pull out the dying plants until late in the year. Maybe even leave them until spring. Then you will have a new crop of beautiful flowers with no effort from you!
After the danger of frost is past, you can start to put your annual flowers in the ground. How you do this will greatly affect the flowers all season long. Many people simply dig a hole and stick the plant into the hole, fresh from the container it came in. If you do this, you will not have much luck growing beautiful flowers. The proper procedure it to dig a hole a little deeper and wider than the plants root ball. Then back fill the hole with a little bit of loose soil. This will allow the tender plant get a root hold. Then take the plant from the pony pack that you purchased it in. Very gently, massage the roots so they break up from their circular growing pattern. When plants spend a lot of time in the growing container, the root system starts to grow in a tight, circular pattern because it has nowhere to spread. Unless you break up this root system, it will continue to grow in the same pattern and you plants will not grow very big.
After you place the plant in the hole, fill the hole with water mixed with a root starter fertilizer. This will give your new plant a vitamin boost and a good drink so it won't go into shock. The next think you need to do is something that people absolutely hate to do. You need to cut the plant back by one third. Most importantly you need to cut off any of the blossoms that are already on the plant. Yes the flowers look so pretty in your yard, but you just gave this plant the shock of its life! If you want a healthy plant you can't expect it to put energy into the flowers while it is trying to grow new roots and establish itself in your soil. So, for the first week or two pick all the blossoms off. Let the foliage get full and bushy, then let it bloom. You will also want to mix a good time release fertilizer in the dirt around your flowers. This will feed your plants for up to three months, perfect for summer annuals.
If you follow these simple ideas you will be pleased with the beautiful flowers your garden will produce. You will wish the summer months would go on and on!
