Bedding Plant Annuals- Blooming Accent Plants for Outdoors
Classification
Technically, annuals are plants that grow from seed, attain their growth, flower and produce seed in one year or less, then die, having completed their life cycle.
Many annuals appear to be perennials, seeming to live on from year to year. In reality, they self-sow (scatter seed which lives over the winter and gives rise to new plants) and thus perpetuate themselves. Also, plants of the biennial or perennial classes but which bloom the first year from seed are considered and used as annuals.
New plants are being introduced in the gardening world so fast it is hard to keep up. And today, many of the bedding plants grown in Ontario as annuals are actually tender perennials that are treated as annuals in our climate. This exciting new trend is offering an incredible array of blooming and foliage plants that can be used as accent plants or as the focus of a beautiful container or in-ground planting. The challenge is learning the names for all the new offerings and how to make the best use of them.
In this Pick Ontario website, we will go over some of the most commonly available specialty bedding plants being grown in Ontario as well as provide information on the more traditional bedding plants.
What sets these new specialty blooming accent plants apart from all the old reliable varieties? In a word, performance. That means more blooms, new colors and flower forms and healthier, stronger plants. Very few are totally new to the gardening world. Most are new selections or improvements on older plants. And some are newly available because Ontario greenhouse growers have developed reliable, economic ways to produce the plants.
Selection and Care
There are 2 basic principles to follow in growing annuals. The first is the quality of the bedding plant itself - and locally grown material - even if produced in a greenhouse-– will perform better in Ontario gardens. The second is that if you wish to prolong the blooming period of an annual, the flowers must be deadheaded immediately after fading, in order that no seeds form. A true annual has a slight root system, as it stores no food for future seasons. It lives to bloom quickly, set seed and finish its existence. Therefore, constant picking conserves its energy and stimulates it to use this energy in producing new blossoms as fast as the old ones are removed.
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