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What are annuals?
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What are annuals? It's an unusual book, you
have to admit, which feels the need to devote a
specific page to ensuring that its readers
understand what the book they've just bought is
actually about. But such is the case with
Discovering Annuals. For 'annual' is one of
those words which seems to create a haze of
uncertainty amongst gardeners so it's seems wise to
set things straight - although, as you will soon
see, 'straight' is hardly the word for
it. Ask a botanist and he or
she will probably tell you that an annual is a
plant whose seed germinates and which develops,
flowers, produces its own seed and then dies all in
one year; he may say it all takes place over a
'course of seasons'. So most annuals germinate
in the spring, flower in late spring and summer and
die in the late summer or autumn; alyssum, clarkia
and zinnia are familiar examples. A few, however,
can also behave as winter annuals, germinating in
the late summer and autumn then remaining partially
dormant over the winter before starting into growth
again in spring and completing their cycle in
summer. Annual chrysanthemums from the
Mediterranean fall into this group. Now the situation becomes
rather less clear. For many of the plants which we
grow in gardens as annuals, plants like petunias
and salvias, are not truly annuals at all. Usually
these are shrubs or perennials from warm climates
which, once they germinate in spring, develop so
quickly that they flower well in their first
summer. In many areas, they're not sufficiently
tough to survive the autumn frosts so are quickly
wiped out; in warmer regions they may survive the
winter but perform much less impressively the
following year. Both these groups, true
annuals and plants which can be grown as annuals,
are included in this book along with a third
smaller group of short-lived plants, the biennials.
Like annuals, biennials usually pass through their
entire life cycle in one 'course of seasons' but
their growth is always spread across two years. So
their seed germinates in summer, established plants
overwinter then flower in spring. Now, at the risk of adding
further confusion, it must be admitted that many of
the plants we grow as biennials are, in their
natural habitats, perennials or shrubs! However,
when sown in summer plants like wallflowers and
double daisies have the capacity to flower so
prolifically in their first spring that we
naturally take advantage. Finally (yes, finally) a
few biennials, like some foxgloves and sweet
Williams, have been so transformed by plant
breeders that when sown in late winter or early
spring they flower in their first summer - as
annuals! This only applies to certain specific
varieties, and frankly, turning some of our
relatively few spring flowering bedding plants into
summer flowers (of which we already have so many)
hardly seems progress. All these various groups
are discussed in Discovering Annuals. All are
raised from seed and are available from the mail
order seed companies.
Annual
Manual
