The Tricks of Growing Annuals
4/12/02
* Never trust “used soil” for growing annuals from seed. These days, premium quality soil for seed-starting is so inexpensive that everyone can afford fresh soil for every project. Choose pure vermiculite for starting seed indoors, or use Pro-Mix Potting and Seeding Mix from the nursery in 8, 16, and 32-quart packages. You don’t have to add anything, the product does it all!* Stake tall plants (18 inches and above) when you plant. Thin stakes in green color are available most everywhere. Trying to stake plants when they’re actively growing is not only a mistake, but it’s too late to save the plant without harming the roots. Use green ties to secure plants to stakes every 10 inches. Some plants (cosmos, ipomoea, sweet peas, etc., are good examples) will be sacrificed to summer winds unless they are well staked, unless you grow them in protected areas or next to a fence. * Some plants never transplant well. You’ve got to choose sites from the start for growing baby’s breath, california poppy, godetia, mignonette, nasturtium, portulaca and salpiglossis, never resorting to transplanting later on. Consider these annuals like concrete: once planted, they should never move. * If you love sweet peas, insist on growing the early-summer varieties which have proven to be heat resistant. Growing summer-blooming varieties will disappoint you because they never perform as well as cultivars which are spring-flowering. Be sure to soak sweet peas well, maybe twice a week after mid-June onward. * Most annuals must be dead-headed (pruning wilted flowers immediately) before plants start producing seed pods and heads. Until recently, petunias were to have had their spent flowers removed, but no longer. New varieties of petunias developed in the last few years don’t need pruning of wilted blossoms because they fall from the plant automatically. * Most annuals need to be pinched back so they develop bushy plants with even more flowers. You can’t go wrong finger-pinching annuals during the flowering season, especially ageratum, browallia, calendula, phlox, salpiglossis, verbena and zinnia. However, pinching must be avoided with annuals that develop tall, flowering spikes. No pruning whatever should be done to these plants, including amaranthus, celosia, cleome, cosmos, hollyhock (some varieties), larkspur, nicotiana, stock, sunflower and tithonia * Cultivate flower beds routinely to stay ahead of the weeds. If cultivating is too much for you, at least make an effort to stop broadleaf weeds from choking your plants. Preen (the substance of which is trifluralin) is ok, but it only works for 90 days to stop the germination of weed seeds; in addition, Preen is biodegraded by ultra-violet light, so it must be scratched into the top layer of soil. On the other hand, there is another product on the market, Amaze, which stops obnoxious grasses and broadleaf weeds with one application. Granular Amaze uses Balan and Surflan for year-long control of weeds and grasses with only one application. * If you regularly plant a bedding garden, check seed packets to see if certain varieties have natural resistance to disease and/or insects. Research has come a long way in the past five years, so now you have access to disease-free asters and snapdragons, for example. * So New Guinea impatiens cost more than standard cultivars, but New Guinea impatiens will self-seed in early fall so you have free impatiens next spring. The trick is not to dead-head flowers from Labor Day onward. When flowers fade, New Guinea impatiens will produce seed pods atop the stalks, these pods breaking open and dropping seeds in the area soon after. After the first killing fall frost, carefully exhume dead impatiens from the bedding garden, taking care to avoid walking in the garden where seeds have scattered. In the spring, spray liquid fertilizer in the garden to trigger germination of these seeds and their growth. If you’re lucky, you should find a dozen or more New Guinea impatiens sprouting through the soil.
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