Garden Annuals: Four Seasons in the Year

Gardening with flowering annuals in the South can be viewed as both a challenge and an opportunity. Our good friends in the northern states have a relatively short season. Cool -season annuals are planted in early spring to enjoy until the weather gets too hot. Then warm- season annuals are planted once the chance of frost has passed, often May to June. Plants grow and flower through the summer and the season ends with the first hard frost in the fall. Southerners, and those transplanted from northern areas, try to replicate this planting regime, often with less than desirable results.

The opportunity for southern gardeners is the potential to have annuals in flower throughout most of the year. The challenge however is to select groups of annuals that are adaptable to climatic conditions during each of the different seasons of the year. Most of us recognize that our summers are long, hot and humid while our winters vary from moderate to cold, with frequent periods of rain.

Spring and fall weather can vary with moderately warm days, cool, crisp nights and periods of rain or drought. Annual plants can be selected that grow and perform well in all four of these seasons. However, it's important to keep in mind that weather at the beginning and end of each season can be highly variable. It is necessary for gardeners to plan ahead to have annual transplants of the right plant types available and then be ready to plant when the weather changes.

Annual gardening in four seasons requires an understanding of a wide variety of plants and the conditions under which they perform well. If your pallet is limited to marigolds, petunia and pansy, these cannot provide the range of adaptability needed in all seasons. I find that a good way to learn about plants you haven't grown before is to get on the mailing lists of several mail-order seed catalogs. Examine the different kinds of annuals offered by seed companies and try a few new ones each year. Study the climatic conditions listed for each plant. You can expand your knowledge of annuals by purchasing books on growing annuals. Many can be found in bookstores. Several recently published books focus on plants for the South. Visit botanical gardens and trial gardens in your area. Don’t forget a notebook and pencil, better yet, a camera to record plants that appear to perform well.

One important decision to make when gardening in four seasons is whether to purchase annuals as transplants (bedding plants) or to grow seedlings yourself. Purchasing bedding plants is certainly convenient, saves time and reduces the risk associated with seed germination and growing young seedlings, but your choice of annual types and varieties are often limited. Unless you have a very good garden center close by that carries a wide selection of plants and seeds, you may not have a sufficient variety of plants to make four seasons of gardening work.

In addition, some outstanding large annuals start from large seeds and make large seedlings that are not adaptable to bedding plant flats. Growing all the annuals you need by purchasing seed and germinating them yourself is a challenging and rewarding endeavor. Many gardeners accomplish the task at relatively little expense using materials purchased from garden centers. While most annual seeds germinate easily in 10 to 14 days, a few, such as pansy and verbena, can be difficult.

With the demands from job, family and community, many of us have found growing large numbers of plants from seeds prohibitive. Try a combination of three approaches. Purchase plants available from garden centers to save time and germinate seed of only those plants that are difficult to find. Where possible, sow large seeds of annuals, such as sweet pea and sunflower, directly in the garden. Once again, an understanding of which method works best for each type of plant is essential.

Semihardy annuals for the spring are generally those plants that will grow when the weather is moist and cool. They provide color in the spring and early summer but will fade in the summer heat. In late February to early March, plant sweet peas, pot marigolds, English daisies, hollyhocks, snapdragons, swan river daisies, English wallflowers and sweet alyssums. Semihardy annuals can also be planted again in late summer for fall and early winter color. In September, start many of the same annuals that were planted in early March.

Annuals for summer are generally tropical in origin. Seed will not germinate and seedlings will not grow until the soil temperatures are at least 70 degrees F. Be careful when buying annuals traditionally grown during the summer in the North. Standard petunias and geraniums often don't perform well through summer in Alabama, especially in the Southern parts of the state. In late April, plant annual vinca, Amaranthus, fibrous begonia, cockscomb, spider flower, cosmos, Coreopsis, Dahlberg daisy, globe amaranth, annual sunflower, impatiens, medallion flower, moss rose (Portulaca), black-eyed Susan, mealycup sage, creeping zinnia, marigolds, mexican sunflower, garden verbena and zinnia.

Hardy annuals can be planted in the fall for color through the winter and into early spring. In mid-October to early November, plant pansy, Johnny-jump-up, China pinks, ornamental cabbage/kale, some hardy cultivars of snapdragon (Liberty and Sonnet series), parsley, Calibrachoa and Diascia.

Because the planting and bloom season for annuals vary and many overlap, it is probably difficult to plant for all four seasons in one bed or border. However, annuals for all four seasons can be located in different areas of the garden so that each can be enjoyed to its fullest extent before being replaced by the next season's selections.

SOURCE: J. Raymond Kessler, Horticulturist, Alabama Cooperative Extension System