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Flowers touch our lives in various ways, soothing us with their aroma and gratifying us with their delightful forms and colours. In your garden, they can add sparkle, vibrancy and great variety.
As the name implies, a perennial is a herbaceous plant that continues to live for several years. In contrast, annuals grow, bloom and die all in one season. Herbaceous perennials die down to the ground every season and send forth new growth. Woody plants on the other hand, retain their branch structure year round, though they may shed their leaves.
Usually, perennial borders follow the line of paths, enhancing your garden journey from one part to another with a magnificent floral display along the way.
But there may be many other places you could site a border. For instance, in lieu of a fence, you could create a perennial border across the front area of your property to define the space.
Combine shrubs with perennials against your home to transform a foundation planting into a mixed border. And, you can also line your driveway with perennial blooms. Perennial borders usually look best against a background.
If you prefer an informal planted background, consider a screen of tall ornamental grass or an assorted collection of unpruned shrubs. Other options for backgrounds to perennial borders include trellises and fences. Look around your garden, and you might just locate an appropriate backdrop that already exists.
True annuals are plants that complete their whole life cycle in one year. They grow, bloom, go to seed and die eventually. Annuals will keep producing flowers if they are not allowed to set seed. This is why you can enjoy such a long season of blooms from annuals.
The great advantage of many annuals is that they flower liberally throughout the growing season, providing steady colour and interest in your garden. Due to their energetic propensity to remain in flower all season long, annuals are a remarkable choice for creating dramatic container displays. As they need to be replanted each season, you also have the advantage of renewing the container soil every year.
Annuals can also be an asset in a perennial border. Most perennials do not bloom all year round. Even gifted perennial border designers struggle with the planting combinations that will flower for a longer span. That's where annuals come in handy.
They grow rapidly, so you can plug them into holes in the border and use them to enhance the beauty of a display if there is a gap in the bloom cycle of perennials.
As there are so many varieties of annuals that flower throughout their growing season, they are ideal for cutting-gardens. In fact, they actually benefit from being cut. With annuals, the more flowers you pick, the more the plant produces.
Many annuals such as zinnias, marigolds and even impatiens will last at least a week in a vase if they are picked fresh. Remove faded flowers to encourage new blooms, as annuals stop blooming once they form seeds.
The most important aspect of caring for flowering plants is to put them in a good quality soil. If you have healthy soil, you will almost be guaranteed healthy plants.
The second basic rule of successful gardening is to choose plants well adapted to the environment where you expect them to grow.
When you buy perennials and annuals in containers, the temptation may be to pick up plants that are in full bloom. This is a mistake; those plants have been forced along at a rapid rate and have quickly outgrown their available space.
Instead, you would be much better off selecting a smaller plant with lots of buds not quite ready to bloom. Also, inspect the plant carefully for any evidence of disease before making a selection.
