 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
 |
|
About Hardy Shrub Roses
About Heathers
About Flowering Crabs
wildlife habitat
Annuals Biennials Perennials
Culinary Herbs
The Healing Herbs
The Fragrant Herbs
Shakespearean and Bible Herbs
Do you Really Need A Tiller
Insect Attack
Flowers for Cutting
Pruning Pointers
Houseplants Clean the Air
Recipes Fresh from the Garden
The Gold Plated Gardener
|
|
| Annuals, Biennials, Perennials--Help! |
| ||||||
| There seems to be a great deal of confusion as to the life span of a flowering plant. Many people understandably want a plant that will bloom all summer and live forever. Unfortunately, there ain’t no such animal. As with everything else in life, compromises rule the plant world. Here’s an attempt to clarify the confusion. An annual, as its name suggests, is a plant whose life span is a year (or less). Annuals bloom all summer - but when summer is over, so are they. Some people tell me their calendulas come back every year...or their portulacas...and so they do, but they are not perennial plants. What’s happened is last year’s plant has dropped seed that germinates the following spring. Nice, but unreliable, surprises. Other plants we think of as annuals - geraniums, for instance - can be potted up and brought indoors before the first frost, cut back to 8”, and placed in a sunny spot. They will winter over and begin to bloom again in early spring. Dahlia bulbs can be dug after frost, stored in a cool cellar and re-planted the following year. On the whole, annuals provide lavish all-summer color but do not return. A perennial, on the other hand, is a plant that will live forever - or nearly so, if cared for and divided on a regular basis. Its foliage dies back each fall, but it sprouts anew from the roots the following spring. The trade-off, of course, is that most perennals have a limited season of bloom - typically, two-three weeks. For those few weeks they make a gorgeous display, but then the show is over until the following year. After all, they have to store up energy to come back and do it again! I hear people express disappointment that the bloom period is so short, but truly, doesn’t it make us appreciate them more? If oriental poppies waved their brilliant banners all summer long, we would soon grow bored with their splash of orange. Like our brief Maine summers, we value them all the more when they arrive. A very few perennials will bloom most of the summer; ask us for suggestions. Perhaps the greatest confusion surrounds the plants called biennials. This group takes two years to complete its life cycle. In its first year it grows but does not flower. It winters over and returns the second year, blooming its heart out, and then it’s done forever. Well, perhaps not forever. Some of the biennials - notably certain cultivars of hollyhocks and foxglove - are perennial where happy, or re-seed themselves vigorously so that they reappear in the same place year after year. Canterbury bells, carrots and parsley are other examples of biennial plants, growing the first year, blooming and setting seed the second. It’s probably common knowledge that deadheading (picking off faded flowers) prolongs the bloom period of any plant. After all, a plant’s only mission is to prerpetuate itself, that is, to produce seed. Once it has accomplished that, it feels (if plants can feel) that its mission is over and it can throw in the towel. Preventing it from setting seed by removing spent blooms before seeds form can extend its bloom period. In many cases, perennials whose faded flowers are cut back will show a second flush of bloom the same season: delphiniums, moss pinks, catmint, for example. Of course, if you want your flowers to re-seed themselves, as many will, you must allow some seed to form and mature. One myth I’d like to put to rest is the notion that perennial beds are labor-free. Certainly they are a cost-effective alternative to replanting hundreds of dollars of annuals each spring. And certainly they come back bigger and better each year. But yes, they need to be weeded, fertilized, maintained. And most perennials demand to be lifted and divided every three or four years. Otherwise, the clump becomes too crowded, and blooming diminishes. Eventually the entire clump may die out. Perennial beds and borders need careful planning in order to display color from spring to frost and beyond. It takes some thought and study to choose a selection of plants that include early, midseason and late bloomers. However, there’s no law saying you can’t plant a few annuals in the perennial border for ongoing, reliable color. The only rule in gardening is, Please yourself. Experiment! |
| Palmyra | ME | 04965-4033 |
 shepherdsgdn@hotmail.com |
||
|
. |
| Visitors: 04703 |