Annuals – rewarding and easy to maintain

Plants for every place and everyone

Humidity, dryness, extreme heat: whatever the conditions of certain areas of your property, spectacular arrangements can be yours by choosing plants capable of withstanding difficult conditions. Too busy to garden? Annuals are your best choice. Create a luxurious décor by choosing plants that will thrive with minimum maintenance.

During the season

Annuals usually like fertile, friable and well-drained soil, and they’ll grow better if you add compost or a time-release granular fertilizer while you’re planting them. In midsummer, you’ll probably need to fertilize once more to maintain their vigour and blooming.

Deadheading

Just to make maintenance easier, breeders have been busy creating many new cultivars that don’t need deadheading. But removing faded flowers will encourage continuous, abundant flowering.

Perennials unfortunately, need deadhead in most cases.

Fertilising and pruning

Towards the end of July, some annuals begin to look pretty raggedy, and would benefit from having yellowing foliage and seed heads pruned.

After cutting them back, a liquid or granular fertilizer won’t hurt, either. Normally, they will then quickly restart growing and blooming right up to the end of summer.

Stalking

The tallest annuals or those producing heavy flower that can easily break when raining or windy may need staking.

• Add stakes early in the season.
• Attach the lengthening shoots to them as they grow.

For your thick, bushy annuals, use the type with variable diameter metal rings that can be attached at various heights to their stake.

Tall annuals or those that produce long floral spikes, such as some hibiscuses, can each have their own stakes.

• Insert a bamboo into the soil behind the plant.
• Attach a string to them every 30 cm or so.

In the fall, some can be saved

It is possible to keep quite a few of your annuals. Many of them are actually perennials that simply can’t tolerate our winter conditions.

1. Bring them in for winter and they’ll keep growing. They’ll be even bigger when you plant them out next spring.
2. Place them close to a sunny window so they get enough light.
3. If you have a limited space inside, take cuttings to root in water from the plants starting in mid-August.

Annuals that can be brought inside or grown in water: