Gardening 101 - Annuals vs. Perennials

This Gardening 101 series will be threefold. I  intended to make this one post, but upon thinking about what I should cover I realized it would be too much to throw at you all at once! The series will highlight three basics everyone interested in growing a plant should know. These are: annuals vs. perennials, USDA hardiness zones, and planting your seeds/bulbs/plants. Today we will cover:

Annuals vs. Perennials

To buy an annual or a perennial? That, my friends, is today’s question. One of the first things I always look for when I consider buying a plant/bulb/seeds is whether the plant is an annual or a perennial. Simply put, an annual is a plant that will only last one year, whereas a (properly taken care of) perennial will come back year after year. 

Annuals

Many people really enjoy annuals (some examples are: pansies, snapdragons, cyclamen…). My mother will plant them in big beautiful pots on the porch by the front door of her house. Annuals give you the flexibility of changing the look of your container gardens, and keeping the pot/yard looking bright and happy – once the plants start looking sad (wilting, loosing color), you can just pull them out and replace them with something else bright and cheerful. The downside to annuals is that they tend to be a bit pricey for something that doesn’t last for more than a year. Still, I sometimes cannot resist the temptation to have something bright and colorful when most of my perennials are either winding up or winding down for the season.

Above are some examples of popular annuals: pansies (top left), snapdragons (right), and cyclamen (lower left) (you’ll see a lot of pansies and snapdragons in the spring and early summer, and the cyclamen will start to appear in nurseries once the weather starts getting cold in the fall).  A Google image search for "pansies", "snapdragons", or  "cyclamen", will provide a taste of the colorful variations these plants produce. Click here for an encyclopedia of annuals.
 

Perennials

           
          Of the two kinds of flowering plants, perennials are the backbone of your garden. In the right conditions, they will come back year after year. That said, all plants have a specific life span and won’t last forever, but you can count on perennials for a number of years. Perennials, just like all other plants, have certain times throughout the year that they are looking their best. In choosing perennials, do your research ahead of time to find out when plants will show their best colors – this ensures color in your garden for most, if not all year long. Keep in mind that if you place a shade loving perennial in full sun… it will probably not last very long! Make sure you read the information that comes with the plant in choosing a planting site or an appropriate plant for the area you wish to fill. Some popular perennials are garden phlox, purple coneflower, and coral bells (pictures of these are in order from left to right below).

      

Be Sure to...

          Read the information on the plant/seed packet before buying it! Just because you heard that rudbeckias (aka Black-eyed Susan) are perennials, does not mean all varieties of rudbeckias are indeed perennials. In the next post of this Gardening 101 series we will look into finding out which USDA hardiness zone you live in, which will tell you which plants will be happiest in your area. Just because the tag on a plant says it is a perennial does NOT mean it will last past a year in your garden or pot. If you are eager to find out your area’s hardiness zone before the next post, check out the USDA’s website and type in your zip code. This number will alert you to which plants will and will not be happy long term in your garden. If you go to a nursery and don’t know if a plant you like will last in your garden, never fear. The staff should be able to help you out – this goes for all,if not most, independently owned nurseries.  Unfortunately, this is a little bit more hit or miss for big stores like Lowes or Walmart, where the employees are sometimes less knowledgeable about their plants. In the age of technology, I err on cruising a few internet sites to tell me what I need (notice I check a FEW sites, and not just one, in order to increase the likelihood that my information is correct) when the staff don’t have answers to my questions. If you have any questions or comments about annuals and perennials, please feel free to share them in the box below or email us at thegiddygardeners@gmail.com! *All pictures were taken from the Better Homes and Gardens website – which I highly recommend you all check out!*

For more reading:
Easy Annuals
Top 20 Perennials