ANNUALS FOR POTS AND PLOTS
Sweet pea
This classic is a large seed that will happily grow in a pot until it’s sown out. It has the most beautifully scented flowers and is well worth the effort. Make sure to provide support as sweet pea is a climber.
A top tip for these is to soak them overnight before planting for better germination.
They have a hard outer coat and this softens it and makes them germinate fast and more reliably.
Cosmos
These later-flowering annuals are not frost hardy, so you’ll have to keep them inside until mid-late May when the last frost usually occurs. Do that and you’ll be rewarded with months of cheerful pink, yellow and white flowers, depending on what varieties you sow.
Regularly deadhead (cut the stem right back to the first leaf below the spent flower head) cosmos and feed with high potash or tomato feed to ensure continuous blooms.
Nasturtiums
Nasturtiums are probably the easiest annual you’ll ever grow. You can start them inside but they will happily germinate when sown out directly. They flower for months,
hardly need to be touched and are great value for money. If that’s not enough, the flowers are edible and popular with pollinators. Better still the seeds in their green state can be pickled and used just like a caper.
Poppies
Poppies are a huge group of plants. The annual types range from the common field poppy to the cheerful Californian poppy.
They are all easy to grow and are happy even in a poor, hungry soil – good news for those lazy gardeners among us! Poppy seed is tiny so be careful not to plant too much at once. If in doubt they are often best planted directly into the ground as the soil temperature increases.
Calendulas or marigolds
These hardy annuals are easy to grow and reward you with months of flower. I even saw a few still trying to flower this winter in RHSI Bellefield! The seed is large and germinates very reliably. They come in different shades of yellows, reds and oranges and a favourite of pollinators.
They also make a great companion plant in the veg garden, attracting beneficial critters and helping to repel some unwanted pests and diseases. On top of that they have lots of medicinal properties too, a musthave plant.
Cornflowers
Another brilliantly reliably annual that happens to be native too. They are easy to grow, come in an impressive array of colours and attract lots of our best native pollinators.
They can be sown in pots for earlier flowers but also direct into the soil later in March.