The Bridge of Flowers taught me that annuals are the easiest and most dependable way of insuring a flowery garden all season long. This spring I am concentrating on adding annuals that will be in full bloom for the Annual Rose Viewing. Of course, I do have perennials in bloom at that time, but this year I am determined to have a very flowery garden at the end of June, and then for the rest of the summer. I bought a number of annuals at the Bridge of Flowers plant sale Saturday, wonderful healthy plants from LaSalle’s in Whately.
This part of the garden doesn’t look great – yet. This is the north end of the South Lawn Bed. A few years ago, I thought I found a way to work around my lack of design sense. What is more classic and more impossible to mess up than a blue and white garden? I planted Connecticut Yankee delphiums, Aconite, ‘Blue Paradise’ garden phlox, a short salvia, ‘Switzerland’ shasta daisies, a white filipendula, snow in summer (cerastium) and white cosmos. That worked pretty well except I could not keep the grass out of the snow in summer. A couple of years ago I could not resist the beautiful yellow troillus from the Bridge of Flowers. A little accent of yellow in my blue and white garden. Perfect. Then the salvias were not doing well and I removed them. In their place I added a shaggy yellow yarrow. Another yellow accent. I’m pretty sure I also added a native penstemon but I can’t seem to find it this spring, and I’m not sure of the color. Probably white.
To refresh this bed and make it more floriferous for a longer season I began by removing most of the white shasta daisy and all the snow in summer. I added this Proven Winners blue daisy with a yellow eye, a yellow marguerite daisy, and Euporbia ‘Diamond Frost, both also from Proven Winner. Blue and white and yellow! I also moved in some purple pansies from an indoor holiday centerpiece. Pansies bloom longer than you might imagine here in Heath.
In the North Lawn Bed, a piece of blue Baptisia I planted a couple of years ago suddenly exploded, as did a patch of ‘Fulda Glow’ sedum. They both covered a golden spoon chrysanthemum. I dug up the chrysanthemum without doing too much damage to the sedum or baptisa and added it, small as it was, to the blue and white and yellow garden. You will see more photos of this garden as the season progresses.
I have friends who don’t like to plant annuals because they’re too much work and of course, short-lived. But I like to have color all season long, so I always plant a lot of annuals. Zinnias and cosmos are two of my favorites to start from seed; ‘Victoria Blue’ salvia and angelonias are two dependables I always buy. I do my best to keep the garden centers in business:)
Rose – I am doing a lot of annuals this year because I want lots of bloom! I have cosmos in the borders, and zinnias down in the vegetable garden. I love zinnias. I do my best for the garden center too.