Gardensp20
Abstract autumn still life with white bicycle and sunflowers
by Lori Rose
I am mostly a shrub and perennial person, but there are certain annuals that I simply must have somewhere in my garden each year. I use them to fill in gaps in borders, or to star in their own spectacular shows. These annuals are versatile, easy to grow, and above all, breathtaking.
When I hear the word annual, impatiens always spring to mind. My mother grows monstrous impatiens. Walking from her elegant, austere front yard through the house and out into the back yard makes me feel like Dorothy opening the door to Munchkin Land. We’re talking voluptuous impatiens, curving around the edges of the borders in stunning hand-chosen shades of pale pink through deep maroon, white, purple, lavender and salmon.
Mom has the right conditions for impatiens, nice soil, nice shade, and her magic potion: a dose of organic fertilizer every two weeks. I love to visit Mom’s garden. Her impatiens self-sow to fill in her perennial beds, and since they don’t always “come true” from seed, Mom’s little “volunteers” are usually orange or lavender. She doesn’t fertilize the seedlings, so they remain diminutive, carpeting the flowerbeds with unexpected color.
My Mom’s garden is the perfect example of why impatiens have been, and still are, the most popular bedding plant in North America. They are constantly covered with happy five-petaled flowers from spring to fall, are self-cleaning, and need little more than some shade and sufficient water. Mom also adds the charm and vibrant color of impatiens to “window boxes” all around her deck rails and hanging baskets of impatiens and ivy on shepherd's hooks add height in the shadier areas of her garden beds. Lively and eye-catching, the winsome impatiens live up to their nickname, Busy Lizzie.
My children love to grow sunflowers. We removed a strip of sod along our neighbor’s fence, and each year we grow our own living fence. Giant sunflowers grow to nearly ten feet tall with heads the size of basketballs. We space them about three feet apart along the fence and plant a row of medium sized (to seven feet) branching types in front of them. Ranging from lemon yellow to deep maroon, even a fluffy “teddy bear” type, they cover the long legs of the giants and fill in the “fence” so that we can’t even see our neighbors when they come to look at the flowers. Deadheading these multi-stemmed types keeps them flowering all season. The front row is the lowest, with short two-to-three foot tall sunflowers like Sun Spot, the perfect height for the little ones to see and touch.
The fence is fun and easy to make, the only catch is that the birds love the seeds. I’ve tried starting seedlings indoors but they just don’t do as well as the ones seeded outside. So I cover the entire row with bird netting about two inches off the ground. That deters most of the birds and allows most of the seeds to grow.
When seeds form on the heads in the fall, the antics of the birds trying to get at them are a pleasure we look forward to every year. We cover one or two of the largest seed heads with old stockings or cheesecloth in fall, then uncover them when it snows to make perfect self-contained winter birdfeeders.
In “sunflower row”, I also sprinkle seeds of red, orange, and yellow mixed nasturtiums. They cover the ground, clamber up the stalks, and echo the colors of the bigheaded sunflowers with their little smiles. Nasturtium is a vine that works equally well hanging out of a basket or trailing along the ground. The leaves also make a perfect disguise to cover fading tulip or daffodil leaves in spring. In the shade of sunflowers, nasturtium will flourish to cover the ground with big leaves and bright flowers. Plant the big seeds with children, either in the garden or in a container. They will marvel at how quickly they go from seed to seedling to plant to flower. The lily pad leaves and colorful flowers are both edible and are lovely (and tangy) in salads or sandwiches.
I discovered lavatera many years ago. I read an article about a 14-year-old boy who was an avid and accomplished gardener, as proven by the photos. He grew perennials. Only perennials. Except for one annual, the only one he said he would bother growing. The photo of his lavatera made me go directly to my favorite seed catalog to order it, only to find that they didn’t carry it. I took to the internet, finally found it, and haven’t been without it since.
Lavatera does self-sow, and it does “come true” from seed, which is a nice thing because it is the color of the flower that stops the show. The color is a perfect clear pink that blends with any other color, rarely clashing with anything, with an unfurling trumpet shape. Lavatera is in the hollyhock family, and the flower looks just like a single hollyhock, but they only grow to about eight inches tall, making them lovely fillers for the front of the border. I grow two or three in my vegetable garden just to collect the seeds for the next year.
Also known as the rose mallow or tree mallow, Lavatera is an old-fashioned cottage garden flower that never needs deadheading. They love sun but will tolerate some light shade. Try them in containers with other sun-loving plants. Fertilize them lightly for abundant flowering, as too much fertilizer will give you beautiful leaves but not many flowers.
The Hyacinth Bean vine goes by a few different names. A lovely lady named Annie who was helping with a little garden at my children’s day care center originally introduced it to me as Egyptian Hyacinth Bean. I admired a long line of these vines smothering a fence with their oddly shaped purple-green leaves, bright purple stems, and white, pink and rose colored flowers. Later in the season they produced the prettiest satiny purple pods. Annie told me to please take seeds when the pods dried. I plant the seeds every spring, and to this day we call it Annie’s Vine.
Hyacinth Bean is also called Lablab, and if you say it over and over, faster and faster, it comes out sounding like blah-blah-blah. You will find that each seed is a different color. The color of the seed forecasts the new vine’s flower color: white seeds give white flowers, buff seeds give pink flowers, and brown seeds give purple flowers. It will grow to fifteen feet to quickly cover a trellis or fence, or let it trail for a unique ground cover or in a hanging basket.
This one you can eat, in fact all parts of the plant are edible. It is a staple vegetable and forage crop in parts of Asia and Africa, although it does look better than it tastes. Hyacinth Bean loves sun, warm days, and cool, mulched soil.
Try one or all of these spectacular annuals somewhere in your garden this season. They are all so easy to grow. They will delight you, and the compliments will be lavish.
Lori Rose, the Midnight Gardener, is a Temple University Certified Master Home Gardener and member of GardenComm: Garden Communicators International. She has gardened since childhood and has been writing about gardening for over twenty years.