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Do you???
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Posted by girlsingardens zone 5 NE (My Page) on Fri, Jun 30, 06 at 8:51
| Plant annuals in your cottage garden that is. I read where someone said that friends don't let friends plant annuals:) I love my annuals. I always have marigolds, zinnias,cosmos, larkspur, sunflowers, petunias, geraniums, moss rose, cleome, celosia, and calendula. Just wondering how many of you plant annuals in your cottage gardens. Except for the petunias and geraniums, which I do buy, I plant all the others as seeds and mass brodcast the seeds. I let them fill an and hopefully reseed for the next summer. Just wondering how many of you do the same.
Stacie
formerly gardeningwithbaby |
Follow-Up Postings:
RE: Do you???
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| Oh I do! Of course, my garden is only about 2 years old, but even when my garden is mature, I think I'll still use them. They're great fillers! This year, though, I planted several different types of zinnias, and they are all pink! Even my Envy ones! What the heck?!? LOL! Right now, I've got: Bat face cuphea (LOVE IT!) poppies, zinnias, marigolds, cleome, cosmos, moss rose, annual verbena, of course all my veggies are annuals! Four o'clocks, nasturtiums, impatiens, cypress vine, MG's, most of my herbs...I really don't see how you could have a cottage garden without at least some of these! HW |
RE: Do you???
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Of course. Now that my garden is getting older I no longer use for them for bedding plants, though. Window boxes and pots primarily. I also spread all sorts of seeds around in the spring, some with thought their placement, some not, just to seed what will come up. Helps add a randomness to the garden.
Less annuals also equals less watering, which is a VERY good thing. |
RE: Do you???
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| personally, I do not agree with that saying "friends don't let friends buy annuals" I say gardening should be about what YOU love...not what your gardening "friends" think your garden should be about, but what YOU think it should be...what YOU enjoy seeing and working with...I would NEVER ever stop a friend from buying whatever kind of flowers or shrubs they like. If I had a bad experience with one or the other, I would not hesitate to share..but nore would I keep them from buying annuals. I LOVE annuals..they have a place in my garden each and every year. For the most part...I keep them mostly contained to my containers...they have shallow roots and expansive color and last much longer than our other gardening staples. I believe they are perfect partners to other long lasting staples in your garden. My personal thoughts are this, YOUR garden should be what YOU want it to be and what YOU like...and annuals are great partners to other plants. They are like jewelry or icing on the cake? They show off the real beauties! |
RE: Do you???
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| "friends don't let friends buy annuals"...I've never heard that either. I absolutely use annuals, and love them! As much as I love my perennials, there is nothing like the instant gratification and eye candy annuals bring to a garden. I practically drool each spring when those flats of annuals arrive at my favorite nursery! I can't wait to buy some to tuck in the bare spots in my flower beds, and also to plant some in pots. It's like instant sunshine. :-) I also love planting seeds of easy to grow annuals. I love my marigolds and zinnias. One of my favorite spring garden activities is to broadcast seeds in a random, cottagy fashion, just to see what happens. Plant what makes YOU happy. You will never go wrong by following your heart. Marilyn |
RE: Do you???
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- Posted by jiggreen zone 6b, carlisle PA (My Page) on
Fri, Jun 30, 06 at 10:32
| "friends don't let friends buy annuals"...that must be the slogan for some perennials-only nursery or organization! i LOVE annuals...i think they can't be beat for long-term color/bloom and fast fill-ins. besides, what is annual in one place is most likely perennial in another....those of us who use annuals may just be zone-challenged! i wouldn't love gardening so much if i didn't use zinnias, marigolds, torenia, persian shield and portulaca in my beds! my friends wouldn't be my friends if they didn't let me use my annuals! :) jiggreen |
RE: Do you???
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| Do I? Heck yes. Nicotiana, cosmos, forget-me-nots, and a few pansies, although mine have been all volunteers for the last couple of years. Speaking of pansies, I think that it's funny that the word pansy has come to mean a guy who is kind of timid and not tough at all, when pansies are really pretty dang tough plants. I've had volunteers show up in gravel on the north side of my house and in other inhospitable places as well. A pansy is no pansy! ThinMan |
RE: Do you???
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Of course I do! I love annuals. I have quite a lot of shade in my yard and I rely on impatiens for color in those areas
that get little sun. I also grown coleus, cosmos, annual salvia, petunias, nasturtiums, lots of lobelia and alyssum too. I wouldn't be without them. It really is all about what you like. Mindy |
RE: Do you???
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| I love annuals, I think they're essential for filling in when my perennials die back for the season. I love my alyssum, lobelia, sapiglossis, blush vincas, impatiens, pansies, nicotianas, thithonias and snapdragons. I love how they add such delight to my garden. |
RE: Do you???
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Yes, I have annuals. Our season starts so early the summer annuals like zinnia and cosmos are essential for getting through the long hot season, not to mention the impatiens and begonias for shade color. Plus, since oriental poppies will not survive here I need my annual poppies. Annuals that are staples in my garden include
alyssum
forget me not
impatiens
begonias
nasturtiums
lobelia
cosmos
zinnia
larkspur
Shirley poppies
other assorted poppies
foxglove
hollyhocks
sunflowers
rudbeckia
nicotiana
Bells of Ireland
marigolds
cilantro and other annual herbs
cardinal climber, scarlet runner beans, hyacinth bean vine
stock
salvia
linaria!!!!
snapdragons
pansies and johnny jump ups
and more as the seed supply allows |
RE: Do you???
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| At the rate I can kill perennials, they might as well be considered annuals. LOL I love annuals for cut flowers. They give you gobs and gobs and they're the one thing I don't feel guilty snipping away at and bring in the house. I really have a huge guilt complex about taking blooms off my perennials and roses to make bouquets, but I'm working on this issue. Just seems to go hand and hand with my gardening addiction.
-Nan |
RE: Do you???
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| Absolutely - could not live without my annuals - the self seeders are a mainstay and then I buy others to fill window boxes and containers plus I WS a bunch - a flower is a flower and deserves a place in my garden wether it blooms one year or several..... Lynne |
RE: Do you???
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I think there's a difference between buying annuals and seeding out annuals, don't you?
Greenhouse grown annuals are often grown from specialty seed bred to be so uniform, entire plant one height, dome shaped etc. And they are so often planted as "marching soldiers". It's formal but it is also very static looking. Not very lush, lovely or cottagey. Most of the people where my mother lives plant in this style (except for my Mom).
I love annuals from seed. I grow all sorts of them. Sometimes just to see what they will look like when flowering! GGG |
RE: Do you???
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| Plant Delights Nursery is where I've seen that slogan. I like annuals that reseed. I have such a tiny budget for plants that buying an annual from a nursery makes me cringe. My mom bought cosmos at a nursery on one of our recent ventures and I was faint from the thought of how many packs of seed she could have bought with that money. She told me I have a difficult enough time minding my own business. ; ) But, there are exceptions, like Salpiglossis, which I can't seem to get to grow and flower from seed, plants of those are money well spent. |
RE: Do you???
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| Yes! I have: Lots of alyssum, love it for front of borders
stock
cosmos
snapdragons
pansies amd johnny jump ups
hollyhocks
sunflowers
nasturtium
heliotrope (annual in my zone)
zinnias I'm probably forgetting some too. Teresa :) |
RE: Do you???
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| I think Cottage Gardens have always been an eclectic mix. annuals would be grown for cutting, herbs, drying, and to fill in where the perrenials weren't. ;-)) What draws me to this style of garden is the anything goes attitude. Do I??? You bet! |
RE: Do you???
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| Yes, I do plant annuals! I can't imagine that any flower lover on the planet wouldn't at least have a pot of geraniums or petunias on the premises! As Slubberdegulion said, "Friends don't let Friends Buy Annuals" is from Plant Delights Nursery. They sell perennials. It was on the cover of one of their crazy catalogs about 10 years ago, it was meant to be funny. At that time the "Friends Don't" tee shirts and bumper stickers were popular, saying things like "Friends don't let friends eat sushi" or "Friends don't let friends live in Detroit" etc. This year Plant Delights is spoofing Harry Potter. The cover is "The Hairy Potter and the Horticulturist's Apprentice". This is just to explain that no one is really suggesting that annuals be abolished from the garden or anything. Garden-snobs like to look down their noses at gardens that feature annuals because they're generally cheap and easy to grow. (Which is why I pretty much stay on this forum and not on certain others where the garden nazis tend to be). Let's hear it for annuals! Woohoo! Patti |
RE: Do you???
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I agree with girlgroupgirl-there is a big difference between
buying annuals -like marigolds and lining them up in straight boring rows and cottage annuals which is more free- form, from seeds and scattered. I never plant anything in a straight row!!!! Not my style.
Gigi |
RE: Do you???
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| "None of us want to take, publish or look at pictures of dishelveled plants and bare borders, yet that’s the way borders look for more than half the year of they rely on perennials alone." -- Pam Harper I found the above quote that I'd saved. Annuals have their place, as do shrubs and trees and bulbs and vines. Reseeders are fun surprises. I like to have a plan in case they don't. Nell |
RE: Do you???
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| I dont' have alot of luck with annuals, but there are some i do love, mostly the kinds that reseed themselves. I love to put petunias, lobelia, impatiens, alyssum, geraniums, coleus, nasturtiums, etc.,in pots and baskets, but I am not home in the evenings due to our three childrens baseball/softball schedules and every year they end up dying on me from lack of watering. I am going to give the pots and baskets in our back yard one more shot next year, but I am going to keep them in semi-shade unless we are expecting company, as i think that they might stand a better chance that way! |
RE: Do you???
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| I do agree the slogan must definitely be tongue in cheek, but I have to admit to have tried to influence the (few) friends who actually try to garden. I don't tell them *not* to buy annuals, I do tell them *not to buy strictly annuals*. My reasons behind that are: a) most annuals do not do terribly well in our hot dry climate and b) when they are gone they are left with nothing but a bare patch (and we have no snow cover to make up for that). My personal view is that, in my climate (and I stress, in my climate) a garden made up of nothing but annuals is a waste - of time and money. Garden centers play up inexperienced gardeners with loads of blooming annuals and lure them into buying them by the bucket. They fall for it quite readily, buy loads, get home, plant them and proceed to kill them with the utmost ease. Utterly discouraged, they then head back to the garden center to buy some more and so the cycle goes on and on. Garden centers have the time of their lives and do good business. Home owners waste a lot of money and end up with nothing on their patches of land. This leads up to discourage and in the end most abandonan the idea of gardening and cement the whole plot! It's a trap, and many people fall for it here. I hate that, I hate being called a sucker and I try to discourage any gardening inclined friend to do that. Do I think annuals have a place in the garden? Absolutely! In window boxes, containers, fillers in between other plants, as a quick fix for an area for which we do not have a clear idea (or the money) to do yet, as a focal point, as a seasonal decoration, etc. Not as the backbone of the garden. I understand it may be very different in areas where you get temperate Summers with rain and a snow cover in Winter, but in a dry Mediterranean garden they should have a sustaining role with the occasional focal point wow factor, not the center stage. Just my opinion, of course. Eduarda |
RE: Do you???
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| Hear, hear! Eduarda, you are so right! Nearly all my annuals are reseeders. I use impatiens and begonias for summer shade color in pockets and they mainly live over for me, being in a sheltered site. However, in my love for three specific winter grown annuals, poppies, larkspur and sweet peas I end up with dead space a couple months every year as those die back in the heat and it takes a while for the zinnias and other summer bloomers to get going. However, they do bloom into frost and I have very few perennials past June. So I do have one bed, devoted to annuals and veggies that looks lame most of the time, all for the sake of a month of glorious red poppies : ) Sometimes the gardens of the snow bound make me really envious, having it all at once in beautiful well watered abundance. So say I, knowing that for the next two months the only gardening I will do is pull spotted spurge, monitor soil moisture and deadhead roses. |
RE: Do you???
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| Hi! i think that is a funny saying! Maybe it shoudl be more like
"friends don't let friends buy ONLY annuals" Ever seen people who only garden using annuals every year? Drives me nuts.It never fills in...you got 6 inches of mulch between each impatient or begonia.. haha i think friends dont let friends do that! It shoudl bemore liek "friends teach friends about perrenials with their annuals" I use them for sure- to add color here or there- or just cuz I like certain plants- mayeb for th ehummingbirds and such :) |
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