Choosing And Growing Successful Plants
Now For Something Different
Most gardeners go for the tried and tested popular plants, but your garden will be more exciting and show more imagination if you try a few different annuals each year.
They may not always live up to expectations, but it's fun searching them out and you'll probably discover some super plants that you'll want to grow again.
Never totally abandon the well-proven in your quest for something different. Many of the lesser-known annuals and biennials will remain that way because they have serious shortcomings as garden plants, so grow just two or three new or unfamiliar plants each season unless you have lots of space in which to experiment. A few failures are a small price to pay for the excitement of discovering a really superb plant that will become part of your regular seed order in future.
The Search
Popular seed companies usually concentrate on the well-proven favourites, and most of the new catalogue entries will be for new varieties of these. New varieties of traditional bedding plants are usually, but not always, improvements and well worth trying, but, if you are searching for new species or genera of plants to grow, send for the catalogues of companies specialising in a wide range or seeds, or uncommon types.
The catalogues with the greatest choice, unfortunately, pose the greatest dilemma. There will be more unfamiliar names from which you will have to choose a handful, and you may have to read between the lines in
making that decision. Don't go by the flower picture alone "" look for a long flowering period, a compact plant, one that will get round to flowering before the cold weather sets in, and one that flowers freely. Be especially cautious of plants that have a description such as 'if sown early can be treated as an annual' ... it probably means that it won't make it before the first frost unless you live in a mild region.
There are fashions in plants. Obscure genera might suddenly become popular, and are absorbed into the mainstream. If you want to grow a few annuals that friends will ask you the name of, search deeper. The ones suggested here are just a few that are pleasing or interesting. There are scores of others.
Most gardeners go for the tried and tested popular plants, but your garden will be more exciting and show more imagination if you try a few different annuals each year.
They may not always live up to expectations, but it's fun searching them out and you'll probably discover some super plants that you'll want to grow again.
Never totally abandon the well-proven in your quest for something different. Many of the lesser-known annuals and biennials will remain that way because they have serious shortcomings as garden plants, so grow just two or three new or unfamiliar plants each season unless you have lots of space in which to experiment. A few failures are a small price to pay for the excitement of discovering a really superb plant that will become part of your regular seed order in future.
The Search
Popular seed companies usually concentrate on the well-proven favourites, and most of the new catalogue entries will be for new varieties of these. New varieties of traditional bedding plants are usually, but not always, improvements and well worth trying, but, if you are searching for new species or genera of plants to grow, send for the catalogues of companies specialising in a wide range or seeds, or uncommon types.
The catalogues with the greatest choice, unfortunately, pose the greatest dilemma. There will be more unfamiliar names from which you will have to choose a handful, and you may have to read between the lines in
making that decision. Don't go by the flower picture alone "" look for a long flowering period, a compact plant, one that will get round to flowering before the cold weather sets in, and one that flowers freely. Be especially cautious of plants that have a description such as 'if sown early can be treated as an annual' ... it probably means that it won't make it before the first frost unless you live in a mild region.
There are fashions in plants. Obscure genera might suddenly become popular, and are absorbed into the mainstream. If you want to grow a few annuals that friends will ask you the name of, search deeper. The ones suggested here are just a few that are pleasing or interesting. There are scores of others.