Annuals

Harry Chapin sang, "All my life is a circle," and I think the verse rings true when it comes to my relationship with annuals. When I started out gardening, I bought a lot of bedding plants every year. I had a shady yard and I remember planting flats of impatiens. After I few seasons, I grew tired of the work and turned into somewhat of a garden snob with a disregard for annuals -- I had jumped onto the perennial bandwagon. I only used annuals for my containers for their non-stop blooming. Now, I am back to annuals. But this time, I am mixing them into my borders. My newest attachment is to Exacum affine, or Persian Violet. It is the most marvelous blue. Exacum is part of the Gentian family. Taylor's Guide to Annuals states that the color of Exacum affine can be mauve to blue, but mine are blue.

The only problem I've had with my return to annuals is that I've found most garden centers only stock a limited number of varieties. I've therefore had to grow these from seed. I bought the seed from Chiltern Seed. They were relatively easy to germinate, but did take quite some time to reach the height where I could plant them out. See my earlier post from March 2010. I also put them in containers.