I’ve underused annuals in my garden forever.
Part of it comes from my love of perennials where I get to watch the plants grow and develop over the years. I feel a connection and I like how the narrative is created over time. Each perennial has a story and that story changes from season to season.
Not so much with annuals.
Part of it also comes from a sort of snobbery. Annuals are for the weak. Annuals are too easy. You don’t have to work for their flowers; they just bloom all summer without fail.
But deep down, I understand the value of the annual. I get that they can be great space fillers. I get that that they can provide color all season and when planted in conjunction with perennials, can ensure there is always something going on. They can provide abundance and abundance is good.
So over the past few years I’ve incorporated more and more annuals into my garden. And I’ll be the first to admit, I’m kind of bad at it. But I’m trying.
When I did my video garden tour in the last post, some of you commented on my weak showing when it came to the annual plantings. And you couldn’t have been more spot on. Even I noticed it as I filmed the tour.
So I did something about it. Well something small about it, as a starting point.
Check out the video below and you’ll see how I hopefully transformed one section of the garden by following the rule of abundance or massing of like plants.
In this case it was with Globe Amaranth. I took 5 plants that were planted way too formally and in too perfect of a straight line.
And planned to add them to another existing planting of five.
So out they went in no time …
… and were easily added to their fellow planting across the front walk.
This time I did all I could to fight against my need for order and planted them in a more asymmetrical pattern.
The Globe Amaranth are mixed in among Carex pensylvanica (Pennsylvania Sedge) where I hope they create a contrasting vignette that only gets better as the blooms continue to emerge all summer and into the fall.
I’ll be sure to update you on this planting as we move into July and August.
Step one in my annuals transformation is complete.
Nice job with the globe amaranth! It should soon fill in the empty spaces between the plants.
So you think annuals are easy, huh? Try to grow impatiens and geraniums from seed and you will know pain … or at least frustration. If you wonder why anyone should bother to grow easily available garden standbys from seed, it’s to avoid the neonics that commercial growers dowse their plants with. Plus you get a better selection if you choose seeds, and there’s the ego boost! “I grew this petunia from seed!”
And yes, I have been frustrated by impatiens seed this year … 🙁
I just love your blog! Thank you for sharing your ideas and humor. Although it’s easy to slam an annual into the ground, I find that it takes lots of time and tender loving care to keep them healthy, happy, well balanced with water and fertilizer, and primped properly. I can easily spend an hour and a half deadheading my gargantuan petunia plant (maybe I’m a bit obsessive about it, but oh well)! I just planted an entire yard’s worth of landscaping last year and I’m so impatient with the growth of my perennials! My annuals do a good job of splashing color and filling spaces.
Thanks again for a great blog! –Lisa
The globe amaranth looks great! I can’t wait to watch it grow. Gotta run. I’m out to get some annuals (I love emilia javanica.) . . .I also like the way you interspersed the tall grasses among your plantings.
It seems to me that many gardeners start out focused on annuals–and end up that way. Just not the same annuals. In the beginning it is all sorts of them, and in the end it’s reseeders that can be cleverly edited with all the knowledge accumulated over the years.
I am growing globe amaranth this year, but mine are a different color, an odd but kind of cool warm red. I also planted — at long last — cosmos, and I know I will probably plant them every year (unless I get lucky and they self sow). They are so lovely, with the frothy greenery and the abundant flowers. Cleome also faithfully self sows every year. I love Grandpa Ott’s deep purple morning glory, but be prepared: they seed themselves everywhere! If only the Heavenly Blue ones did the same.
Hi John, now that you have moved the Globe Amaranth to the other side to form a more asymmetrical pattern,
what might be your plan for the now bare side?