Annuals with fiery hot flowers and huge tropical leaves are in. Putting them in a border can be dramatic, risky and potentially shocking, like inviting Howard Stern to a party to spice things up.
Beyond pure `Wow!’ power, annuals offer variety. More are becoming available, some with the look and feel of perennials but with a much longer season of bloom.
“There’s a lot of really cool annuals out there that people didn’t know about before,” says George Papadelis, owner of Telly’s Greenhouse and Garden Center in Troy, Mich., and Telly’s Gardens in Brighton, Mich.
So now, some gardeners who wouldn’t have been caught dead planting annuals a few years ago are scouting nurseries and snapping up all the chartreuse and purple coleus, ornamental sweet potatoes and Brazilian verbena they can find.
The thing is, annuals had been in the floral world’s doghouse for a while. They were just too obvious — gaudy orange marigolds, stiff red salivas, boring floppy petunias. And they require work. Annuals, which start and complete their life cycle in a season, must be replanted each year. And many require deadheading — removing the old flowers — to stay in top form.
As gardeners gained experience, they were ready to move on to something more subtle and permanent. So with all the gusto of slugs on hostas, they turned to perennials, which live through the winter.
Besides their wider variety, perennials seemed practical: Buy and plant them once and assemble a garden forevermore in bloom.
This proved harder than it seemed. Perennials require maintenance, too. But, even more importantly, most bloom for just a few weeks. Selecting the right perennials is no cake walk.
“Everybody wants low-maintenance and they thought perennials would fit the bill. But a lot of people aren’t that much into gardening. It takes quite a talent to have a constant bloom with perennials,” says Bob Neveux of Cardinal Gardens in Grosse Pointe Woods, Mich.
Annuals, on the other hand, often do just that, starting in early to mid-summer and flowering into fall. So as the demand for them increases, so do the choices and availability.
Some plants sold in the North as annuals are tender perennials in warmer climates, like one of Neveux’s favorites, Brazilian verbena (Verbena bonariensis), an airy, tall plant with magenta flowers.
He also likes to use ornamental sweet potatoes, various colored coleuses and purple fountain grass (Pennisetum setaceum `Rubrum’) in containers he designs and plants for the Grosse Pointe War Memorial in Grosse Pointe Farms, Mich.
That same combination, along with a fuchsia, has become so popular that White Flower Farm is offering it as a collection called “A Living Bouquet” this spring. Planted in a container, the combination delivers a season of color and texture mainly from foliage.
White Flower Farm, a Litchfield, Conn., nursery and mail-order firm long known for its perennials, began selling annuals in 1994 and has added more each year because of demand.
“There’s nothing more beautiful than a perennial garden in June. But then you come back in August and it’s a little weak,” says Renee Beaulieu, public relations coordinator for White Flower Farm.
Containers with annuals in unusual, eye-catching combinations (that sometimes include perennials) made news during the last couple of summers at Wave Hill in New York and Longwood Gardens near Philadelphia, the equivalent of Paris fashion runway shows for plant trends. English garden guru Christopher Lloyd likes the tropical look so much, he ripped out an established rose garden and put in gusty plants like cannas, bananas and Brazilian verbena.
Cannas are among the tender bulbs, tubers and rhizomes that can be planted outdoors once the weather warms. Victorians cherished their flamboyant, subtropical appearance and many newer cannas are compact, making them suitable for containers as well as beds. For no-holds-barred impact, check out Pretoria with its dramatic green-and-yellow-striped leaves. Tuberoses and lily-of-the-Nile (Agapanthus) are also finding their way into more northern gardens.
Some annuals are modern twists on old favorites. Anybody who dislikes petunias should take a look at the milliflora petunia series like `Fantasy Pink Morn.’
For foliage color, Papadelis likes Phormium, a plant in the Dracina family that can be used like a spike in containers but with exotic, striped leaves. “For people who like spikes, this is a way superior alternative,” he says.
Foliage and overall effect are important. In “Annuals for Connoisseurs” (Prentice Hall, $25), author Wayne Winterrowd argues that, freed of a rigid planting scheme, annuals can bring spark and spontaneity to the garden.
Tom Smith of Four Star Greenhouses in Carleton, Mich., recently toured seed companies in California to see what’s new in annuals and reports that the bright colors are taking off. Smith recommends the Temari series of verbenas, with big flower clusters in vibrant colors. He had one flowering in his garden last year from summer’s heat all the way to 17-degree temperatures in November.
