The Rural Voice, 1993-07, Page 41416.
1
by Rhea Hamilton -Seeger
I believe the dream of every
perennial gardener is to have
enough varieties of perennials to
bloom throughout the summer
season into the fall and avoid
planting annuals. There is
something quietly dignified about a
garden that continues to grow and
offer colour all summer long
without the addition of annuals.
But what spot in the garden draws
your eye the most? Yes, the garden
that has injections of brilliant
colour, usually put there by
annuals.
The brilliant splashes of orange
marigolds, rainbows of petunias
and deep blood reds of the
geraniums all last through the
summer months and well into the
fall. A well balanced garden takes
advantage of this and has little
corners open for annuals to bring
more colour into the perennial
border.
Gardening with annuals is not a
difficult way to garden. Each
spring you start with a clean palette
and lay out your colours. Each fall
you clean it all up, work your
humus or manure into the soil, and
wait for spring when you can set
out your new colour scheme.
Annuals don't need deep soil.
The standard six inches of topsoil
that is left around new homes is
enough to support them. But by
now you will have already planted
all your annuals and will be looking
out over their colours.
Annuals last one growing season
and spend that one season trying to
produce as many seeds as possible.
Their vivacity is part of their
survival. We take advantage of
that by trimming their spent blooms
and forcing them to continue
blooming to produce the seeds.
Nipping the spent flowers is called
deadheading. This is a great job
Gardening
Annuals
prolonging the beauty
for a young gardener. It was one
job I really enjoyed when I was a
child. Now my daughter has a
bucket she carries once a week
around the garden and pinches off
the spent blossoms into it. This
seemingly little task means a great
deal more colour throughout the
summer.
It is usually recommended that
you water annuals with a general
purpose fertilizer every two weeks
and water them well. Soak the
ground deeply only if there is no
rain — most annuals are
overwatered. Weed by hand until
the plant takes over the space.
Petunias have to be one of the
most popular annuals sold in North
America. Gardeners can select
from a broad range of colours and
petunias are pretty fool proof in the
garden. To keep them from getting
all leggy and weak -looking trim the
vigorous growth about the end of
July. Give them a dose of fertilizer:
this will perk them and up and force
them into another blooming frenzy.
Geraniums are great feeders and
working a bit of old manure into the
soil beneath the plant helps a great
deal as well as a good fertilizing
program throughout the summer.
A friend told me of an old trick
to make potted geraniums bloom.
You place an old horse bun in the
bottom of the pot. Since geraniums
are heavy feeders it seems to make
sense. This idea could be utilized
in the garden as well. Both
geraniums and petunias are great
for dry areas and will withstand
droughty conditions.
For the moist spots in the garden
you will have planted impatiens.
Keep the ground from drying out
and work a little compost around
the surface if you did not work in
humus or old manure in the spring.
Another favourite is
snapdragons. Children love to
squeeze their snap open.
Snapdragons also like rich well
drained soil, and always cut off the
seed heads or blossoms to keep the
plants busy and blooming.
One of my favourites is
nasturtiums. I planted them again
in my border and this year I was
lucky and they lived to flower.
Usually something eats them off.
They prefer thin soil. It does not
take much frost to kill them in the
fall so they are best planted in a
sheltered spot or in a part of the
garden that won't miss them too
much when they are gone.
If you want to get away from the
colour and head into heavily
scented annuals, look at planting
nicotiana and stock. Both plants
initially had white blossoms when
they were offered in nurseries but
new varieties have pink tones and a
deep burgundy red for the
nicotiana.
We had large white nicotiana in
the garden last year. Their sweet,
elusive scent drew late afternoon
and evening visitors into the garden
looking for the plant responsible for
such a delicious invitation. This
year we planted dwarf nicotiana
and some stock right off the patio.
The visual hide-and-seek of white
blooms under the filtered shade of
the shrubs combined with the
fragrance late in the day should
make a nice place to sit even more
inviting.
Now I just have to tear myself
out of the garden to enjoy it. I am
looking forward to a summer of
evening rains and sunny days, and
of course a proliferation of blooms
in the garden.0
Rhea Hamilton -Seeger, in addition to
working in advertising production
for The Rural Voice, raises two
children, and is a skilled cook and
gardener.
JULY 1993 37