I only use annuals for new first-year garden area where I need a color pop or blank space filled. Once the perennials fill in though, no more annuals.

I hang two baskets from my front eaves and two pots on my porch with annuals. Nothing more unless from seed.

have to have them - I absolutely love all my reseeders but since I am an avid WSer I do a ton of annuals also - there is always someplace to tuck them in for that pop of color. I will buy a few of the speciality annuals but I have a good source locally where I can get 4" pots for $2.00/$2.50 and the procedes benefit the handicapped.....

Lynne

Over twenty different annuals self sow every year.
Most I can't remember buying the original plant or seed.
They are just as important as the perennials and biennials.
How could I have a cottage garden without sweetpeas, bachelorÂs buttons, cosmos, larkspur, snaps, clarkia etc. etc.

Not to mention my favorite feverfew that grows reseeds and grows over and over again. Dry or wet, sun or shade, early spring or late fall, it will grow anywhere and everywhere.
A single plant will flower for weeks.

Couldn't garden without them.

Libby

love annuals...hate the price. I think they have a "special job" in my garden. They are the unity that ties things together, that keeps consistant color and they are pretty uniform so I think they add nice contract to some other non annual things that can be wild, bushy and unkempt....for me..they are a balance...another feature of the garden. I do hate petunias other than wave..they are to much deadhead work..they dont do well if they get dry even once and in order to keep them large and pretty they take a great dead of water and work. For me, they are NOT worth it. I do love begonias unconditionally :)

Love annuals, hate the pocketbook hit tho...but oh well...I dont drink or smoke..so the money I save there is my fudge money for annuals. :) I guess you could say annuals are my bad addicting habit :) I need annual rehab :)

I like annuals. Big show for little money, if you do seeds. So far it looks as if annuals are more popular in the warmer zones where the growing season is longer.

I think bulbs are a better bargain but they take more planning. For the price of a flat of annuals, you can buy several lily bulbs, or 25 daffodil bulbs, but there has to be a plan in effect the previous season.

Nell

I don't have many annuals in my garden, for years I have been gravitating towards perennials. At times when wandering around my garden trying to put my finger on why I'm not happy with it I've come to the conclusion it's lack of color, I've got lots of different textures but for a good part of the time there's a definite lack of color. I think for me the perfect garden would be one with a good balance of all three, perennials, biennials and annuals. I know I've started a list of annuals I'd like to plant next year. Is anyone growing Livingston Daisies, great for hot sunny areas or Viscaria pretty little flowers in pastel colors really nice in baskets and containers. I don't see either of these at the garden centers anymore.
Annette

Well, alot of the plants I really love are annuals so it's hard to do without them. But I do plan on filling my garden with perennials so eventually it will "grow" itself. I am planting annuals with the hope they reseed year after year and maybe I won't have to plant many of them eventually either. Of course I always see something new I want whether annual, biennial or perennial!

I love self-reseeding annuals. It's a good investment - like perennials. Could I live without them? Yes. Would I want to? Heck no!! Foxgloves give me so much joy, and they produce so many babies. I replant them where I want them to be, and they continue to reseed.
Some of my culinary herbs are annuals that I consume daily. Those are a must in a garden. How can you have an Italian mozarella-tomatoe sandwich without basil?! :)
So, yes - I do love annuals! They worth the buck.
~Natalie

I love annuals because you get such a bang for your buck. At least I do cause I have such a long growing season, like 7 months! I love having fresh basil and thyme right outside my kitchen door.

This year I've started some from seed and I've gotten such a kick out of it. I actually was able to grow, blanket flower, mexican hat, parsley, celantro, cypress vine, sweet alyssum and poppies. I plan on trying more next year.

Like Annette, said my garden suffers from a lack of color at certain times of the year also and annuals give it the punch it needs.
Vikki

Perennials are so great, it's true; but I always want room for annuals because I can do something diferrent each year. I found that Zinnias and sunflowers are super easy to grow from seed. I love the foxgloves too - they do have tons of babies each year, and you can move them wherever you want.

I have mostly perennials, and I don't do the million pots of annuals that I used to do, but I do still have begonias on my shady front porch, and I have zinnias & snaps in my garden. I may get back to the million pots of annuals one day (or next year, even), but this year I decided to put the money into my beds, instead.

If you are really shooting for a riot of color and long-lasting, I don't think annuals can be beat.

Like most others, I gravitate to self-seeding ones that cost you only once. My zinnias didn't self-seed enough, so I will be buying those each year from now on. I grow (or they grow themselves!) larkspur, cosmos, rudbeckia, zinnia, salvia farinacea and splendens and coccinea, ageratum, petunias, and Jewels of Opar, lunaria, hesperis matronalis and kiss me over the garden gate. I think that's all of them.

I also love melampodium and snaps.

CMK,
I used to feel like you. Then I discovered seed trading and winter sowing.
With winter sowing, I found it was so easy to start many annuals. Some of them do look dinky compared to the greenhouse stuff at the garden centers early in the season, but they catch up and look great in no time.
With seed trading, I found all kinds of cool annuals I had no clue existed. There is a huge world of annuals besides the dinky bedding things often found at the garden centers. Though some of the good nurseries near here are starting to carry a much better variety of plants. Plus trading makes seeds cheap and I don't feel bad about plants that are gone at season's end especially if I save seeds.
Remy

I hate to pay good money for one season color with annuals in pots. I planted a lot of tithonia and angelonia in flats this year. It pained me and I'm looking for perennials or seed-sowing replacements of annuals for next year. I don't mind paying for snapdragons or petunias because those self-sow in my garden. That's okay.

So, now that I've gotten the big stuff done in the garden, I'm heading for SEED territory when it comes to annuals!

Plant Delights Nursery has a T-shirt that says:

Friends don't let friends buy annuals

LOL
Cameron

Love them!! For one thing, I like the easy versatility and the punch of color. One year it might be marigolds in this corner, the next year I'll try them in another area. I love the self seeders, and also the gathering of the seeds to trade.

I think Nell had an excellent point about the length of the growing season. The warmer zones get more bang for the buck because we garden year round.

Perennials may be the bones, but annuals are the colorful, ever changing touchs!

Marilyn

Cameron, lol, I love that T-shirt! Ive noticed it before in their catalog and have informaly adopted that saying.
Ok, I guess im just a freak for perennials. I always think that if theres room for an annual, theres room enough for a perennial. I tend to pack my gardens really full so theres always color, so I dont have to depend on annuals.
Like I said, im not a much of a seed grower. I like annuals that will come up nicely by just being sown directly in the ground.
Ps.- If you guys like reseeders get Calendula officinalis. Great annual!

CMK

I can't do without some of them--morning glories, snapdragons, lobelia, many others, but I especially like unusual annuals, heirloom annuals, and reseeding annuals, much like everyone above. It is hard to find some of them and I haven't done much with seeds, but it sounds like I need to. I tried some Love Lies Bleeding this year, and I love it. Annuals really have a lot to offer, but I am really picky about them--don't like marigolds, for instance. I once went to a large Portland nursery, and watched this man check out with just two plants--a large, newer variety phormium and some marigolds. I thought it funny at the time, but there always seems to be room for some annuals!

Gotta have em! For early color I can't help but go to the greenhouses or even Wally World for a pony pack of something. The majority of my garden is perennial but I love things like impatiens, cosmos, snaps, asters, cleomes, and sometimes petunias. Sometimes the snaps survive the winter and the cosmos reseed but it takes so long for the blooms to come that I have to get some. I have tired wintersowing annuals but there just isn't enough time before the cold weather is back to really enjoy the flowers. Annuals....I love em.

Bonny

Annuals are a must have, for me. Nothing beats annuals for quick color!!! Perfect for pockets, raised beds, under trees,and in pots. It's great to have a mix of perennials, annuals and shrubs. I like experimenting with all the different varieties. In my climate, annuals thrive almost year round. SO there! ;-) Becky

I like annuals, but they don't like me :-( I don't know why, but I always have trouble raising annuals from seed - even those which are supposed to be super easy, like cosmos and zinnias. At the moment, I have zinnia seedlings sitting in the garden and doing nothing. As for cosmos, from the seeds I sowed, I see only two minute seedlings that look as if they are embarrassed... Snaps didn't even bother coming up. The plantings around them are happy enough, so I don't think the problem is lack of soil fertility. I do believe the issue is soil hardiness, as I garden in clay.

I also find that our extremely hot dry Summers do annuals quickly in. I have never been able to grow lobelia, even if I start with a nursery pot. There are some annuals that do well for me, though, if they are kept in shade - begonias and impatiens, especially, but I buy these from the garden centre. My major success from seed is sweet allyssum and I have small clumps growing in different areas of the garden. Over the last couple of years, due to our seed swap, I have also grown poppies and they have done well.

Petunias are iffy for me. Some will do very well and perform for months on end, others will simply linger there, look unhappy, shrivel and die. Go figure. I also notice that they require a high regular amount of fertilizer in order to perform well.

All in all, I would not base a garden around them, or depend heavily on them for looks, but I do enjoy the burst of color annuals provide in a garden.

Eduarda

Eduarda, probably the hot summer is the problem. Try autumn sowing of things like Nigella, Larkspur, any kind of annual poppy, sweetpeas, and I'd bet you do just fine with them. Once you get them started, all of these return year after year. Usually if you start them in October is best. I've done it in all kinds of hot summer climates, like Florida, Texas, and the Central Valley in California.

Lobelia doesn't like heat, and it can't tolerate frost, so unless you have frost-free winters, it'll probably be a bust. If you do have frost-free winters, or you feel like protecting them, then lobelias will do beautiful all winter and Spring until really hot weather arrives.

Another neat annual to try (and all the ones I'm talking about are easy to grow just sprinkling the seeds on the ground and keeping it watered) is Schizanthus. I found it was winter hardy to at least 25°, makes beautiful foliage all winter, and stunning flowers in the Spring.

--Ron

Ron, I think you are absolutely right. I've sown annuals in early Spring and by the time they are up, hot weather strikes and that stunts them. I will try in October this year. Some years October will be still warm and dry for us, others the rains will start. Let's see what this year will bring. As for frost, it also depends on the years. The area around me usually gets a couple of light frosts during Winter - January and February, mostly - but my garden is normally frost free because it is kind of sunken and has a wall all around it. I'll see if I can find Schizanthus, it sounds beautiful. Thanks for the tips.

Eduarda

I like annuals because they have a longer bloom time. My new bed was supposed to be for larger blooming annuals, with just a few perennials here and there, but I'm finding myself putting in more and more perennials. I'm going to have to mark them somehow, so I can tell where the reseeded annuals can stay.

Also, since we have a lot of concrete around here, I plant annuals and herbs in wash tubs to put here and there for color. I don't worry that they won't be back next year, because I know I'll plant more.

Sue

I'm getting ready to pull a bed of perennials (black-eyed Susans) to replace with annuals (zinnias). Have enough BES in other beds ... just want something different.

I always grow moonflowers and morning glories from seed, same with basil.

Vicki, I wince every time I see someone mention cypress vine, lol. It self-seeds like crazy and unless you grow it in a spot where you don't mind it taking over it can haunt you for years. I must pull 3 dozen babies a day from my veggie garden and the drainage area near another flower bed.

Are your moonflowers the vines or the big plants? I grow both, and my one that's not a vine self-seeds prolifically. My cypress vines don't always self-seed here in zone 5. I have two that I moved from the veggie garden, and they are doing well in my new bed. I also like to grow cardinal creeper. This year, I have 2 vines in a pot, and have the pot on the ground in the middle of the fence, and the cypress vines on each end. I think they will meet up with each other in a few weeks.
Sue

I wouldn't plant an entire garden of annuals, but I must have trailing petunias for my window boxes and sweet alyssum (from seed only) as groundcover in my rose garden.