Annuals

Easy growing annuals

Annuals are flowers and plants which only grow for one season, then they die off and must be replanted again by seed or starter plants the next year. Some annuals create seeds though, which will drop to the ground and naturally start sprouting on their own the following year, but many must be purchased again if you want to have those flowers blooming in your yard and garden again each year.

Annuals are a quick, easy, and inexpensive way to create beautiful color in your yard and garden in the springtime. Many annuals can be purchased in small four or six inch starter pots, and they'll often already have flowers blooming when you buy them. Buying them this way allows you to take them home, put them into the ground or into pots and containers, and have an instant blooming garden right from the start.

By planting blooming annual flowers along your walkway for instance, or into a new garden bed or container, you'll have instant color and beauty in your yard as early in the season as you'd like.

Most annuals are fairly easy to plant, take care of, and grow. Most of them also come in a wide variety of flower color selections too. Some annuals are particularly hardy through drought and strong sunlight, and some actually continuously bloom from spring through summer and into late fall too. These types of annuals tend to be the most pleasing to gardeners, because there is little work needed to keep their garden look fresh and colorful almost all year round.

Vinca flowers for instance, look a little like Pansies and they come in a huge variety of flower colors. You can buy vincas which have solid colored flower petals and blooms, or ones which have variagated colors on the flowers instead. The leaves of this plant are green and glossy, but it does extremely well in high heat and direct, strong sunlight areas.

Vinca's often grow to about ten or twelve inches high, and when you pluck the expended buds off of them regularly, they bloom in some areas for months on end. In Zone 7B for instance, it's not uncommon to see Vinca's in bloom from March through September or October.

Another easy growing annual that's a favorite of most gardeners is the Pansy. This plant also has glossy green leaves and many different flower colors to choose from. The flowers themselves almost look like little faces with the way they're colored too.

Morning Glories are another annual plant in most areas, and these also produce profusive flower blooms for months on end. As long as the roots of the Morning Glory vines are kept moist and out of direct, hot sunlight, these plants will climb all over a trellis, fence, and even bushes too.

Morning Glory vines create a tight spiral pattern when they're climbing, so you need to give them small things to grab onto. A trellis with wide wooden slats is too large for the tight spirals to get around easily, but a chainlink fence is ideal. You can even use string or thin twine for the vines to wrap around and climb.