Annual Flowers

There is no replacement for the extreme color that is provided by seasonal color displayed in the garden with an array of annual flowers arranged for eye catching appeal. Whether positioned into a wide range of containers, baskets, raised planters, or into designated flower bed areas within the landscape, annual flower plantings have been one of the most popular forms of gardening.

No matter how you choose to manage the use of seasonal annual flowers, proper flower selection, site selection, planting, and management is the key to getting the most out of your flower color.

There are two main groups of annual flowers being warm season annuals and cool seasons annuals. Simple as it sounds, each dominate their own season with warm season annuals tolerating the warmer conditions from May thru October and cool seasonal annuals tolerating the cooler seasons from October thru May.

Warm season annuals are the largest category of annual flowers that are usually planted right at or just after frost warning periods due to the sensitivity to frost, freezes, and cold damage. Their planting season is usually between May - June with some exceptions with some slightly cooler temperature tolerant varieties such as Petunias, Snap Dragons, Allysum, Diantus, etc.

Cool season annuals are the most unknown segment of seasonal annual flower color. The most popular and main segment of this group are Pansies that always amaze people by their unique performance during the cool conditions of late fall, winter, and early spring. One of the most amazing sites is the color of Pansies during these cool periods of the year. It will have your neighbor's talking.

Below are some guide lines to assist you in your selection, positioning, planting, and management of your annual flowers to ensure a host of color for your garden. Either scroll down thru the information below or click on one of the links below to direct you to each of these topics outlined.

There are so many choices of annual flowers, that you'll never get bored at the selection of variety and color. Continually, new varieties are being created to provide you more options every year. Some gardeners choose to stay with tried and true consistent varieties from year to year where others choose to continually try new and different design combinations within their annual color.

One of the largest criteria outside of sun exposure is that of growing patterns with taller upright varieties producing heights of 12" - 30", medium height massing varieties producing heights from 6" - 12", and lower ground covering varieties producing heights from 2" - 6".

Whether in containers or in ground level flower beds, many will choose a combination of these to produce a mixed floral arrangement of heights as well as color and foliage variation. Along with flower color, many annual flowers provide a multitude of foliage color providing stunning color in shades of gold, yellow, maroon, purple, and oranges.

Other design options that make a bold striking statement are massed selections of one or two flower colors or varieties. This simple statement combines the features of simplicity and color for an outstanding result.

If you aren't sure what flowers to choose, come in and allow Evergreen of Johnson City's greenhouse specialists assist you in the selection of annual flowers.

Once you have selected your desired locations where you'll be positioning your flower containers or flower bed locations, you'll want to understand the degree of sunlight that each receive. Different flowers tolerate varying amounts of sunlight exposure falling into the categories of full sun to partial shade or full shade to partial sun.

When selecting your annual flowers, you should fine each labeled as being tolerant to one of these two categories to ensure their successful growth conditions. This is an important feature to pay attention to when selecting and positioning your annual flowers.

Full sun to partial shade conditions can vary from exposures providing full or all day sun with little or no shade exposure to that of full sun during at least 4-6 hours of the day with a portion of the day being shaded or highly diffused light.

Full shade to partial sun conditions can very from exposures providing only filtered light with no direct sun exposures to that of direct sun exposure for limited period of the day usually less than 4-6 hours with emphasis of the early morning hours.

Soil preparation is one of the most important factors in annual flower success. Good soil preparation and cultivation promotes good drainage, consistent soil conditions, better oxygen, nutrient, and water flow through the soil media that contain flowers and their root system.

Particular flower varieties that are sensitive to wet or poorly drained soil conditions perform much better when flowers beds and soil media is cultivated either manually or mechanically to improve overall drainage especially during rainy seasons.

Depending on the nature, consistency, and type of soil that exists in your flower plantings spots, various soil amendments may be required to be added, blended, and cultivated into your site's existing soil to promote loosening, better moisture & nutrient retention, and higher organic content.

Types of soil conditioners that can be used are sphagnum peat moss, pine bark humus 'fines", composted cow manures, chicken or poultry manure, or other forms of highly organic compost or soil medias. Click here to check out our web page on soil conditioners for the garden.

During the initial preparation of flower spots, it may be required to manage heavier soil preparation incorporating larger volumes of organic soil conditioners. Whether manually or mechanically, cultivating this amended soil into your existing soil to an appx. depth of 4" - 8" is very important. During the initial cultivating and during follow up spring and/or fall plantings, we suggest incorporating a granular flower fertilizer such as Fertilome Gardener's Special fertilizer into the soil area to provide you a base 6-8 week slow release fertilizer.

Though liquid fertilizers are great supplements to annual flowers and many other garden plants, we feel that they should be used as supplements to a base fertilizer program starting with slow release granular types especially in ground level flower beds. wo great selections of water soluble liquid fertilizers that we recommend are Fertilome Gardener's Special water soluble fertilizer of Fertilome Root & Bloom water soluble fertilizer.

Remember, for the same reasons that cultivating and good soil preparation provide good drainage & performance, raised or slightly mounded bed levels also provide advantages to flower plantings.

Once planted, we also highly suggest top dressing your flower plantings with Pine Bark Humus which is a very fine grade of pine bark that you apply at a 1" depth over the surface of the soil once the flowers are planted. This promotes great moisture retention as well as provides you a level of weed suppression. Also, a granulated pre-emergent herbicide can be sprinkled over the soil surface beneath the mulch layer to assist in preventing the germination of weed seeds that would soon become weed infested within your flowers. This pre-emergent is American brand Treflan and comes in a small shaker can as well as a larger 15 lb. bag for larger projects.

Prevent planting flowers deeper than they are already used to be when in the containers they were grown in. Planting too deep can cause both stem and/or root rot. Another great boost to getting your flowers started off quickly is by applying 1-2 applications of Fertilome's Root Stimulator within the first week or so after planting. This root building fertilizer formula combined with that of Vitamin B1 and IBA, a rooting hormone, promotes quick and advanced root establishment to get your flowers off to a successful start.

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