Gardening with Annuals in Flower Beds

If you need colour in your garden quickly when you have moved into a new home or to fill in for a season where a perennial plant or shrub has failed, annuals are a great solution. They can be used to fill in flower beds while long term plans have time to mature or can be used in a bed of their own for a summer splash of colour.

Colourful and very pleasing displays can be created with these versatile flowers and with a little thought can provide a long period of interest and colour.

When creating a flower bed for annuals try to have a scalloped edge as it looks much better than a straight edge border and adds an extra dimension if grass is running up to the border, bringing the plants right out into the grass.

Annuals are superb plants for providing quick colour and will give one a quicker and cheaper display of colour than any other flowers.

They are best grown in poor soils as if they are planted into a rich soil excessive foliage is produced at the expense of flowers. A well drained, light soil with plenty of sun will give the best results.

Look at annual seeds for sale and on the packets you will see that there are hardy annuals and half hardy annuals. The two need to be treated quite differently.

Hardy Annuals

The term 'hardy annual' is used to describe any-annual flower which can be raised from seed sown in the open ground in spring and needs no protection whatever during its cycle of growth. Quite a few sown in the open ground in August or September to come into flower in late spring or early summer but it is a gamble with the weather when sowing at this time and you must be prepared for losses if the winter is severe.

The time to sow in spring depends very much on your location and that year's weather. Wait for the soil to warm up otherwise you run the risk of the seed rotting instead of germinating.

This means you could be sowing anytime between late March and late April or early May.

Choose a fine day when the surface of the soil is not too wet. Preferably sow in shallow prepared drills (take note of the suggested depth on the seed packet) as this makes recognition of your plants from weeds much easier when it comes to the inevitable thinning and weeding. Make the first thinning as soon as the seedlings can be conveniently handled. After a further two to three weeks it should be possible to make the final thinning.

To help to sow small seed thinly, mix the seed with some very fine and dry sand. This helps to spread the seeds and also has the advantage of you seeing where you have sown. Other seeds you will find are large enough to sow individually but those in between sizes you can to sow with finger and thumb, holding the seeds in the palm of your hand and using the finger and thumb to take a pinch of seeds and lightly sprinkling them over the ground. With practice you will find that this allows you to sow thinly and reasonably accurately.

Half-hardy Annuals

These are annuals which cannot be planted out in the garden until all danger of frost has passed. If you have a heated greenhouse or frame in which a day temperature of about 13 degrees C can be maintained, raising these plants is quite straightforward. Alternatively they can be sown indoors using the heat of an airing cupboard or a small propagators that fit on top of a radiator. Once germinated "prick out" into seed trays spacing so that each box contains 24 or 30 plants depending upon the final size of the variety. Hardy annuals can be treated in exactly the same way.

Plants grown under glass or indoors must be hardened off properly before planting into their final positions. Either use a cold frame or, if not available, take the boxes outside during the day and back in at night until fully acclimatised.

Plant out half hardy annuals when all danger of frost has passed, removing them from their boxes by cutting between the roots with a sharp kitchen knife or other suitable sharp implement.

There is no point in starting seed sowing under glass too early in the year or the plants may be ready too soon for planting out. Some varieties such as alyssum and French and African marigolds germinate and grow on very quickly. Sow too early and you end up with leggy plants that have to be continuously nipped back before planting out time arrives.

Planting Out, Transplanting and Aftercare

Plant half hardy annuals firmly with the aid of a trowel and water them in afterwards.

Annuals need plenty of room to develop, the minimum space for the smallest should be 9in and most will fill out to 15 to 18in.

When thinning the hardy annuals lift the larger thinning carefully as they can replanted where there are gaps.

The best aspect for a flower bed utilising annual plants is south or west facing. When working out planting schemes it is more important to place plants so that they form pleasing shapes and patterns than it is to get perfect colour blending. Once your bed is dug over and raked down to a fine tilth, mark out the shapes to fill with each type of plant with the end of a stick and, when satisfied, go over the lines with sand to make them more visible.

A good rule of thumb is to always to make bold plantings of each individual species or variety. It is also true that varying the shape of the groups so that there is no uniformity and varying the heights to carry the eye from one plant to another ads to the attraction of a border. Broadly speaking you have the tall plants at the back, the medium-sized plants in the middle and the short plants in the front but it is better to bring some of the medium-sized plants to the front occasionally and drop back some of the short ones so that all manner of pleasing shapes and contours are created. Seed catalogues today include annual grasses and these can be included to give texture, movement and, in many cases, beautiful flowers.

Dead-heading is a good practice for the reason that it often encourages plants to produce another crop of flowers.

Have fun and create your own designs and colour schemes. Who is to say you are wrong? What is pleasing to you will not be to another and vice versa.

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