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Flowering Annuals

My favourite flowering annuals (and biennials) are all good contributors to the garden colour. They've decided that I am getting lots of them, in locations of their choice. The gardener is not consulted...

Blue Pansies

It is easy to lose patience with plants that insist on self-seeding. Sometimes they establish their seedlings in the most ridiculous places, having a huge joke at the expense of the garden designers and controllers. My Toe Toe grass threw up five seedlings in the guttering along the roof of the house, the cordylines seem to favour the gravel driveway, and Lychnis likes the lawn.

Occasionally a self-seeding annual is expelled for unacceptable garden behaviour. This judgment is a very personal thing - I've read that some British gardeners consider Alchemilla Mollis a total nuisance, and ban all its seedlings. I have friends who will not allow Forget-me-nots in their gardens. Fancy missing out on those feathery drifts of blue in the spring!

Take a look at my list and see what you think. I hope you'll find some of your favourites mentioned. Most are annuals, though some biennials like honesty, foxglove and hollyhocks have been allowed in. And some of my choices can behave like short-lived perennials in certain situations...

Sweet Peas... Mon 2nd Apr 2007: Sweet Peas have always scared me. Gardening books talk about the essential preparation of the ground - digging in loads of manure, watering, and so on. It all seems terribly serious - after all, they're just flowering annuals! Easy come, easy go...
Mahogany Coreopsis... Sun 6th Feb 2005: In my garden Coreopsis is not perennial - the plants don't last over winter. So I grow my Coreopsis from seed. This year I've tried a beautiful deep red variety called Mahogany Coreopsis.
Forget-Me-Nots... Sun 7th Nov 2004: Sometimes the most humble self-sown annual makes huge contributions to a garden and gets absolutely no credit - it’s taken completely for granted, with rarely a photograph. That’s the yearly fate of my annual pink, blue, and white Forget-Me-Nots.
Purple Cornflower... Mon 28th Jun 2004: This purple cornflower is a sentimental favourite annual - I first saw this colour in the famous Somerset gardens of Hestercombe, which I visited on my great English Garden Tour and Adventure in the summer of 1996.
Lemon Nasturtiums... Mon 28th Jun 2004: Nasturtiums brighten up many of my garden borders and garden pots. They self seed happily, and give great colour for months of the year.
Blue Petunias... Tue 11th May 2004: I always have some blue annual petunias growing for potted colour or in the spring and summer flower garden display.
Cerinthe... Thu 29th Apr 2004: Cerinthe are absolutely beautiful free seeding annuals with blue-green foliage and small purple flowers which hang down. They are happiest in semi-shaded woodland areas in the Moosey garden.
Variegated Honesty... Wed 1st Oct 2003: Honesty is a very valuable biennial which brings the spring garden alive. The most desirable forms have variegated leaves. This is a white flowering variegated Honesty.
Variegated Mallow... Tue 30th May 2000: I grow variegated mallows for their foliage as well as their small lilac flowers. I discovered Kings Seeds seed catalogue in 1998 and among my first order was a packet of these seeds. I thought I'd like them - I had no idea how big they would grow.
Salvia Horminum... Fri 26th May 2000: This annual is sometimes known in seed cataligues as annual clary sage, which is a pity as it is nothing like the clary sage that I grow. There are three colours - white, pink and deep blue.
Lychnis... Sat 20th May 2000: Lychnis is encouraged to self seed in my garden. Originally I thought that only the white variety would be welcome, and I carefully collected seeds off the first plant. I didnãt realise how prolific Lychnis was, or how much my colour tastes would widen.
Russell Lupins... Sat 20th May 2000: In some parts of New Zealand there are large tracts of Russell lupins which grow by the roadsides. Their combinations of blues and pinks are a tourist attraction, and the subject of many bus stops for photographs.
Cosmos... Thu 18th May 2000: The feathery leaves and delicate daisy flowers of Cosmos are some of my favourite annuals in the garden. I always look forward to the late summer days when they are at their flowering peak.
Orange Cosmos... Wed 10th May 2000: Gardeners will know the normal types of cosmos, in colours of pink, lilac and white, but may not know this shorter form. I bought seeds two years ago, and used the grown plants as fillers for one of the new gardens over the water race.
Pansy... Wed 10th May 2000: Violas and pansies are irresistable with their cheeky little faces. I enjoy looking at their different colour designs and trying to work out possible parents. I love what my bees do to pansy designs. These plants have big hearts.
Nicotiana Sylvestris... Sat 6th May 2000: I grew my first Nicotiana Sylvestris plants from seed, not realising how fond I would become of these crazy big plants. When the leaves first form in spring they are a beautiful clean green colour, with patterns in the veins highlighted in the sun.
Nicotiana Alata... Wed 3rd May 2000: The first year that I ordered seeds from a winter catalogue I spent hours and hours writing and rewriting lists. There were a number of varieties of nicotiana offered, and I ordered them all. I particularly liked the look of the lime green ones
Marigolds... Mon 1st May 2000: Once upon a time marigolds would have been lucky to have made it onto my list of favourite annuals. I'm still not convinced. They possibly only deserve a mention because they time their flowering well.
Annual Lavatera ... Wed 26th Apr 2000: The soft pink flowers of this annual Lavatera have a silvery sheen. They are easy to grow from seed, which germinates readily throughout spring summer and autumn.
Honesty... Sun 23rd Apr 2000: I hadn't met the biennial Honesty until I came here to West Melton. We arrived at the height of the purple honesty flowering season, and the effect aroung some of the existing borders here was amazing.
Hollyhock... Fri 21st Apr 2000: Hollyhocks are great plants for summer colour and height. They are reliable performers, and their seedlings always appear in interesting places.
Foxgloves... Wed 5th Apr 2000: Foxgloves have to be one of the most timeless plants in a garden. They are considered by some to be weedy. Others see foxgloves and immediately think cottage garden, seeing nothing else.
Campion (Weed)... Sat 1st Apr 2000: I refuse to write much about this weed which looks oh so pretty in a close up photograph. Mind you, I have to admit to having planted it. The bright pink flowers add something to late spring, though they look like they've been coloured in with a felt pen.
Californian Poppies... Tue 28th Mar 2000: Californian Poppies have colonised many dry river beds in Canterbury. Surviving just on the natural rainfall, I decided that they were my sort of flowers. The basic orange ones look great on dull days.
Alyssum... Sun 26th Mar 2000: It's nice to think that the first Alyssum plant came here with a bagged rose from my old garden. I enjoy their white flowers which turn up in the driveway and in paving cracks on the front path.